The  articles  in  this  volume  were  written  originally 
at  the  request  of  and  for  "The   Chicago  Tribune". 


MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 


BY 

V.  BLASCO  IBANEZ  , , 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  FOUR  HORSEMEN  OF  THE  AP?)CA.» 

"MARE  NOSTRUM,"  "WOMAN  TRIUMPHANT," 
ETC.,  ETC. 


TRANSLATED  BY 

ARTHUR    LIVINGSTON 

AND 

JOSS  PADIN 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &   COMPANY 
681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


COPYBIGHT,   1920,  BY 
E.  P.  DUTTON   &  COMPANY 


All  Rights  Reserved 


"First  printing June,  1990 

Second  printing June,  1990 


7 


Printed  In  the  United  States  of  America 


ATJTHOK'S  NOTE 

The  various  articles  in  this  volume  were 
written,  on  my  return  from  Mexico,  for  the  New 
York  Times,  the  Chicago  Tribune  and  other  im- 
portant newspapers  in  the  United  States. 

When  I  began  my  articles,  the  revolution 
which  finally  overthrew  Carranza  had  not  yet 
triumphed  and  "the  old  man"  was  still  alive. 
Events  moved  rapidly  while  the  articles  were 
coming  out.  Carranza  was  assassinated  and 
Obregon,  with  the  militarist  party,  came  into 
power. 

Works  of  the  moment,  these  articles  record 
my  various  impressions  of  the  days  during 
which  they  were  written.  They  do  not,  in  con- 
sequence, show  the  unity  and  homogeneity  of 
a  book  written  after  the  fact  on  events  already 
complete  in  themselves  and  easily  appreciable 
to  the  person  observing  them  in  perspective 
and  as  a  whole. 

I  might,  of  course,  have  remodeled  these 
articles  and  reduced  them  to  chapter  form.  I 


vi  AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

might  have  suppressed  some  paragraphs  to 
avoid  repetitions  and  added  others  to  fill  in 
the  completed  picture.  I  finally  decided  to 
leave  them  exactly  as  they  appeared  in  the 
press,  with  all  their  spontaneity  as  works  of 
the  moment. 

They  do  not  contain  all  that  I  have  to  say  on 
the  Mexico  of  the  present.  They  are  simple 
impressions,  hastily  and  incompletely  jotted 
down  as  circumstances  warranted  or  required. 
I  regard  them  as  the  first  shots  on  the  skirmish 
line,  before  my  real  battle,  with  all  my  heavy 
guns  in  action,  begins. 

The  final  results  of  my  observation  and  study 
on  contemporary  Mexico  I  shall  give,  with 
greater  amplitude  and  more  attentive  art,  in 
my  forthcoming  novel  called  "The  Eagle  and 
the  Snake." 

VICENTE  BLASCO  IBANEZ. 

New  York,  June  20,  1920. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  ...  1 

II.    THE  SAD  STORY  OF  FLOR  DE  TE  ...  21 

III.  "  CITIZEN  "  OBREGON 49 

IV.  THE    REAL    AUTHOR    OF    CARRANZA'S 

DOWNFALL 74 

V.    CARRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY      ...  98 

VI.    CONDITION  OF  THE  COUNTRY   ....  124 

VII.    THE  GENERALS 148 

/ 

VIII.    THE  MEXICAN  ARMY 171 

f  •  ' 

IX.    MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE  ....  191 

X.      MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES         .       .  219 


MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 


MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 


I.    THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  REVOLUTION 

I  AM  just  back  from  Mexico,  where  I  spent  a 
month,  and  a  half.  In  this  brief  period  of 
time  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  Government 
that  looked  strong  and  seemed  destined  to  reach 
the  end  of  its  constitutional  days  peacefully;  I 
witnessed  the  outbreak  of  a  revolution  that  in  its 
early  stages  led  a  languid  life;  I  saw  the  de- 
cisive triumph  of  this  revolution,  brought  about 
by  the  unexpected  assistance  of  political  ele- 
ments that  had  seemed  out  of  sympathy  with  it; 
and  I  observed,  finally,  the  flight  of  President 
Oarranza>  the  present  uncertainty  concerning 
his  fate,  and  the  still  greater  uncertainty  re- 
garding the  probable  future  of  the  new  Gov- 
ernment in  process  of  formation. 

After  all,  there  is  nothing  extraordinary  in 
this  vertiginous  movement  of  events.  Of  all 
things  Mexican,  revolutions  move  with  the 
greatest  velocity. 


•2' "  '  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

I  went  to  Mexico  to  gather  material  for  a 
novel  that  I  intend  to  entitle  "The  Eagle  and 
the  Snake."  Among  my  notes  there  is  a  statis- 
tical table  showing  the  number  of  governments 
that  Mexico  has  had  since  it  secured  its  inde- 
pendence. In  less  than  a  hundred  years — be- 
ginning with  1821 — the  Republic  of  Mexico  has 
been  served  by  seventy-two  different  govern- 
ments. Now,  with  the  fall  of  the  Carranza  re- 
gime, the  record  stands  at  seventy-three,  with 
time  to  spare  before  the  century  closes.  Leav- 
ing aside  the  thirty  years  of  Porfirio  Diaz's 
rule  we  find  that  the  average  life  of  each  gov- 
ernment has  been  approximately  one  year. 

In  this  series  of  articles  I  am  going  to  tell 
what  I  saw  and  what  I  heard  in  Mexico.  I  am 
going  to  give  the  American  public,  in  advance, 
a  small  portion  of  the  observations  I  made  for 
"The  Eagle  and  the  Snake. "  These  will  be 
simply  the  impressions  of  a  novelist,  of  an  im- 
partial observer.  I  had  ample  opportunity  to 
talk  to  Carranza,  as  well  as  to  his  bitterest  ene- 
mies, and  I  was  able  to  get  their  conflicting 
views.  I  am  grateful  to  both  sides  for  many 
courtesies  received,  but  I  hold  no  brief  for 
either  party.  If  there  is  any  group  that  has 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  REVOLUTION          3 

won  my  sympathy  it  is  the  Mexican  people, 
the  eternal  victim  of  a  tragi-comedy  that  never 
ends,  the  poor  slave  whom  all  pretend  to  re- 
deem and  whose  lot  has  remained  unchanged 
for  centuries,  the  everlasting  dupe  whom  the 
redeemers  shower  with  fine  phrases,  never 
telling  him  the  truth  because  the  truth  is  fre- 
quently cruel. 

Carranza's  Craft  Inspired  Distrust 

I  had  several  fairly  intimate  talks  with  Presi- 
dent Carranza  and  I  am  in  a  position  to  state 
what  the  underlying  motive  of  his  policy  was 
in  the  last  days  of  his*  regime.  I  am  fully  aware 
of  the  fact  that  Carranza  is  not  one  of  those 
men  who  can  be  easily  probed.  Accustomed  to 
the  politics  of  a  country  where  dissimulation 
is  one  of  the  best  practical  virtues,  it  is  no  easy 
task  to  sound  him.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  when 
Don  Venustiano  receives,  a  visitor,  the  first 
thing  he  does,  by  instinct,  is  to  back  his  chair 
against  the  nearest  window.  By  this  simple 
maneuver  he  places  himself  in  a  semi-darkness 
so  that  his  body  becomes  a  silhouette  from 
which  the  face  stands  out  like  a  faint  white 
spot.  In  this  posture  he  cannot  be  observed 


4  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

closely,  while  he,  on  the  other  hand,  can  scruti- 
nize at  pleasure  the  face  of  his  visitor  which 
remains  exposed  to  the  full  flood  of  light 
streaming  through  the  window.  When  some- 
thing arrests  his  attention,  Carranza  has  a  way 
of  peering  over  the  rim  of  his  light  blue  spec- 
tacles. It  was  this  very  trick  which  made  the 
rustic  Pancho  Villa  suspicious  of  Carranza  and 
led  the  former  to  exclaim  on  one  occasion: 
"  There 's  nothing  the  matter  with  Carranza's 
eyes.  He  has  very  good  sight  and  doesn't  need 
spectacles.  He  wears  them  to  shade  his  eyes 
and  hide  his  thoughts  better." 

But  the  reader  must  not  infer  from  this  that 
Carranza  is  a  sort  of  shrewd  tyrant  of  awe- 
some aspect.  Don  Venustiano  is  an  old  coun- 
try gentleman,  a  ranchman,  with  all  the  cun- 
ning of  rural  landowners  and  all  the  shrewd- 
ness of  county  politicians,  but  he  is  simp&tico 
and  has  a  noble  bearing.  Despite  his  apparent 
reserve,  at  times  he  waxes  loquacious,  "feels 
like  a  student" — as  he  puts  it — and  then  he 
talks  freely;  he  even  laughs. 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  REVOLUTION          5 

His  Hostility  to  Militarism 

Carranza's  fall  was  due  to  his  stubborn  at- 
tempt to  pursue  an  anti-military  policy. 

This  old  chieftain  of  the  revolutionary  arm- 
ies, who,  though  born  in  the  country,  is  more 
warlike  than  many  of  his  Generals  bred  in  the 
cities,  would  never  permit  any  one  to  give  him 
the  title  of  General.  Knowing,  undoubtedly, 
that  the  chief  trouble  with  Mexico  is  the  incur- 
able eruption  of  Generals  with  which  the  re- 
public is  afflicted,  he  did  not  care  to  add  an- 
other boil  to  the  diseased  body  of  the  nation 
by  assuming  the  title  of  General. 

His  followers  always  referred  to  him  as  the 
" First  Chief7';  they  never  called  him  General. 
During  his  campaigns  Carranza  wore  the  uni- 
form of  a  buck  private. 

Now,  on  the  eve  of  his  retirement  from  office, 
he  took  part  more  or  less  directly  in  the  Presi- 
dential campaign  and  he  used  his  influence  to 
bring  about  the  election  of  a  civilian. 

"The  trouble  with  Mexico,"  he  told  me  in  an 
interview,  "has  always  been,  and  still  is,  mili- 
tarism. Few  of  our  Presidents  have  been  men 
drawn  from  civil  life;  always  Generals.  And 


6  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

what  Generals!  .  .  .  No,  this  thing  has  got  to 
stop  for  the  good  of  Mexico.  My  successor 
ought  to  be  a  civilian,  a  man  of  modern  views 
and  progressive  ideas,  capable  of  preserving 
domestic  peace  and  directing  the  economic  de- 
velopment of  the  nation.  It  is  time  that  my 
country  should  begin  to  live  the  healthy,  normal 
life  which  other  nations  enjoy." 

The  ideal  cherished  by  Carranza  could  not 
be  more  praiseworthy,  but  at  the  same  time 
nothing  could  be  more  absurd  and  dangerous 
than  the  means  employed  by  him  to  carry  out 
his  plan.  Therefore,  while  I  applaud  his  views 
on  militarism,  I  applaud  also  his  downfall. 

For  President,  the  Unknown  Bonillas 

To  invest  the  Presidency  of  the  republic  with 
the  civil  character  that  befits  it,  it  would  have 
been  necessary  to  choose  a  candidate  of  emi- 
nent qualities,  a  man  with  a  long  record  of  dis- 
tinguished public  service,  a  man  of  unques- 
tioned popularity.  And  what  did  Carranza  do? 
He  did  precisely  the  very  opposite  thing.  He 
selected  one  of  the  most  obscure  of  Mexicans. 
He  hit  upon  Senor  Bonillas,  his  Ambassador 
at  Washington,  a  man  who  has  spent  most  of 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  REVOLUTION          7 

his  life  away  from  his  native  land  and  who 
even  married  abroad. 

There  is  another  important  factor  in  the  situ- 
ation: the  character  of  the  Carranza  govern- 
ment in  the  closing  days  of  its  regime. 

I  am  well  aware  of  the  fact  that  when  a  revo- 
lutionary party  triumphs  in  a  country  like 
Mexico  dissensions  are  bound  to  occur  in  its 
ranks  eventually;  these  dissensions  are  inevit- 
able. The  "deserving  patriots "  are  legion! 
They  all  want  their  reward,  and  the  country 
does  not  have  enough  wealth  to  go  around  and 
satisfy  every  appetite.  The  lucrative  offices 
are  few  in  number  and  there  are  dozens  of  can- 
didates who  consider  themselves  competent  to 
fill  them. 

There  is,  moreover,  a  situation  peculiar  to 
Mexico.  In  every  country  one  can  find  the 
disinterested  revolutionary  type,  the  ascetic 
agitator  who  expects  to  get  from  revolu- 
tion only  the  ideal  satisfaction  of  victory.  Of 
course,  in  every  revolutionary  movement  there 
are  shameless  self-seekers,  but  together  with 
these  there  are  noble  and  disinterested  vision- 
aries who  sacrifice  themselves  for  the  common 
good  and  who,  after  the  triumph  of  their  doo- 


8  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

trines,  continue  to  live  like  real  saints,  feed- 
ing on  the  bread  and  water  of  their  enthusiasm. 
Among  the  Mexicans  who  occupied  the  high- 
est public  offices  after  the  revolution  I  searched 
in  vain  for  the  Don  Quixote,  for  the  type  that 
appeared  in  the  French  and  Russian  revolu- 
tions, the  disinterested  patriot  who  thinks  only 
of  the  common  weal  without  regard  to  his  own 
advantage.  I  failed  to  find  him.  Those  I  met 
are  men  of  hard  practical  sense  who  never  lose 
sight  of  personal  profit. 

Revolutionaries  Usually  Rich 

I  was  surprised  to  see  the  large  number  of 
rich  revolutionaries  in  Mexico.  There  may  be 
some  poor  revolutionaries  in  Mexico — I  hope 
there  are  some,  for  in  my  own  country  I  was 
once  a  poor  revolutionary — but  if  there  are  any 
such  in  Mexico  their  number  is  so  scarce  that 
they  can  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand, 
with  some  fingers  to  spare. 

The  majority  of  those  revolutionaries  are 
undoubtedly  the  sons  of  millionaires.  They 
claim  that  before  the  revolution  they  were  sim- 
ple peons,  ambulant  vendors,  subordinate  em- 
ployees, or  mere  vagabonds.  Such  claims  must 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  REVOLUTION         9 

be  forced  attempts  on  their  part  to  hide  their 
influential  origin  and  so  to  flatter  the  popular 
masses.  If  what  they  say4  were  true,  their 
present  wealth  could  be  explained  only  by  some 
unexpected  inheritance  recently  received  from 
relatives  who  had  heretofore  ignored  them. 
Otherwise  it  would  be  utterly  impossible  to  un- 
derstand how  men  who  six  or  seven  years  ago 
were  ambulant  milk  dealers,  vendors  of  dry 
vegetables  or  Mexican  hats,  hungry  rural  school 
teachers  or  mail  carrriers,  can  honestly  have  ac- 
quired fortunes  estimated  at  several  millions  of 
dollars,  especially  since  these  men  have  wasted 
considerable  time  in  revolution.  It  is  equally 
difficult  to  explain  how  so  many  wives  of  Gen- 
erals and  Colonels  who  half  a  dozen  years  ago 
were  poor  women  of  the  peon  class,  how  so 
many  lady  friends  of  Generals  and  Colonels, 
are  now  able  to  display  expensive  jewelry  which 
remind  people  of  the  gems  bought  years  ago 
by  the  leading  Mexican  families  now  in  exile. 

But  let  us  not  insist  on  these  details.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  the  prominent  leaders  of  the  Mex- 
ican revolution  made  the  revolution  for  a  fixed 
purpose.  They  do  not  understand  sacrifice  for 
the  common  good.  Carranza  had  to  consoli- 


10  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

date  his  new  Government.  After  the  first  few 
years  he  was  forced  to  limit  the  number  of  his 
favorites;  whereupon  those  who  were  left  out- 
side of  the  golden  shower  of  his  favors  became 
the  bitter  enemies  of  the  First  Chief. 

When  I  observed  closely  the  inner  circle  of 
intimate  friends  who  gathered  around  Carranza 
in  his  Presidential  palace  I  was  struck  by  their 
youth.  The  respectable  Don  Venustiano,  with 
his  white  beard  and  light  blue  spectacles,  looked 
like  the  head  master  of  a  boarding  school  for 
boys.  Generals  of  27  and  grave  Ministers  of 
29  or  30  followed  with  veneration  and  gratitude 
the  old  First  Chief. 

The  Young  Adonis  Who  Ruled 

In  reality,  one  of  these  youths  was  the  real 
ruler  of  the  Mexican  Eepublic  during  the  last 
few  years,  the  real  power  behind  the  throne, 
Juan  Barragan,  a  General  27  years  old,  the 
chief  of  Carranza 's  staff. 

Those  who  had  a  petition  to  make  would  im- 
mediately think,  "I  shall  have  to  see  Juanito 
Barragan  about  this." 

On  account  of  his  youth  and  amiable  charac- 
ter everybody  spoke  of  Barragan  as  Juanito 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  REVOLUTION   11 

("  Johnny")  Barragan.  A  simple  law  student 
and  the  son  of  a  well-to-do  family,  he  followed 
Don  Venustiano  when  the  latter  rose  against 
Huerta.  President  Carranza  always  showed  a 
certain  weakness  for  this  youth,  who  accom- 
panied him  everywhere  as  a  beautiful  and  deco- 
rative adjunct  to  the  Presidential  entourage. 

" The  Handsomest  Man  in  the  World" 

It  has  been  stated  recently  that  Barragan 
was  executed  by  the  revolutionaries  of  Mexico 
after  Carranza 's  flight.  I  hope  the  rumor  is 
not  true.  Why  kill  him?  He  was  the  Apollo, 
of  the  revolution.  Tall,  handsome,  arrogant 
despite  his  childlike  features,  the  girls  of  Mex- 
ico consider  him  the  best  looking  man  in  the  re- 
public— in  fact,  in  the  entire  world.  He  was 
almost  a  national  glory  and  received  honors  ac- 
cordingly. "With  the  bright  blue  of  his  uniform 
and  his  gold  braid  he  was  a  dazzling  sight.  He 
seemed  to  have  just  stepped  out  of  a  toy  box, 
freshly  varnished.  He  bought  himself  a  new 
uniform  every  week.  Twenty-seven  years  of 
age,  fine  health,  an  amiable  character — and 
master  of  Mexico ! 

His  enemies  said  that  he  owned  a  whole  row 


12  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

of  houses  in  the  principal  avenue  of  Mexico 
City.  Impossible !  He  could  not  have  had  any 
money  left  for  such  investments  after  throwing 
it  away  by  the  handful  as  he  did.  During  the 
last  few  years  it  has  been  a  fine  business  for 
singers  and  actresses  to  go  to  Mexico !  Thanks 
to  the  amiable  Chief  of  Staff,  an  actress  could 
visit  Mexico  and  return  to  her  native  land  with 
savings  amounting  to  one  or  two  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars. 

Barragan's  power  extended  even  to  the  uni- 
versity. During  my  visit  to  Mexico  the  Gov- 
ernment assigned  me  to  that  institution,  which 
was  invited  to  entertain  me  and  direct  my  ex- 
cursions over  the  country.  This  courtesy  did 
not  surprise  me.  "It  is  because  I  am  a  writer/' 
I  thought.  But  shortly  before  I  left  Mexico, 
through  the  indiscretion  of  a  functionary,  I  dis- 
covered that  a  certain  famous  foreign  dancer 
had  also  been  consigned  to  the  university  dur- 
ing her  journey  in  Mexico  a  year  before.  Was 
I  offended?  Of  course  not!  It  was  the  doing 
of  the  amiable  Barragan.  He  received  all  pe- 
titioners with  a  bountiful  generosity,  as  though 
he  would  die  rather  than  fail  to  serve  them.  He 
never  said  no  to  any  one.  He  was  capable  of 


THE  CAUSE  OP  THE  REVOLUTION   13 

surrendering  Don  Venustiano's  head  if  lie  was 
asked  for  it  with  real  insistence.  And  Car- 
ranza,  plain  in  dress,  grave  in  appearance,  a 
man  of  strict  morals  and  clean  life,  when  he 
observed  the  elegant  uniform  and  the  gold  braid 
of  his  Chief  of  Staff,  seemed  to  rejoice  as 
though  he  were  contemplating  his  own  image 
in  a  looking-glass.  On  other  occasions,  when 
the  President  would  hear  of  Barragan's  suc- 
cesses with  the  ladies,  he  would  smile  with  the 
delight  of  a  kindly  grandfather. 

''Johnny"  Briefly  Defends  Republic 

I  left  Mexico  City  without  bidding  adieu  to 
the  Apollo  of  the  revolution.  His  Excellency, 
General  Don  Juan  Barragan,  was  spending 
whole  days  with  the  telephone  receiver  at  his 
ear,  giving  orders,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the 
map  of  Mexico.  The  followers  of  Obregon  had 
already  taken  the  field,  and  "the  handsomest 
Mexican,''  as  the  marriageable  senoritas  and 
visiting  actresses  say,  had  just  assumed  the 
duties  of  a  strategist  and  was  busy  directing 
the  movements  of  the  Federal  troops. 

Poor  and  amiable  boy!  I  can  see  now  why 
the  Carranza  regime  collapsed  so  readily. 


14  MEXICO  nsr  REVOLUTION 

Bonillas,  Carranza's  Unfortunate  Choice 

The  real  and  immediate  cause  of  Carranza  *s 
downfall  was  his  obstinate  attempt  to  impose 
upon  the  country  the  Presidential  candidacy  of 
Bonillas.  If  it  had  not  occurred  to  him  to  in- 
sist on  this  solution  and  had  he  allowed  the 
Presidential  campaign  to  follow  its  natural 
course,  letting  Generals  Obregon  and  Pablo 
Gonzalez  fight  it  out,  he  might  have  completed 
his  Presidential  term  in  peace.  And  he  would 
probably  be  revered  as  an  idol  to-day  by  his  old 
subordinates. 

The  reader  will  probably  ask  why  Carranza 
hit  upon  a  candidacy  so  unpopular  as  that  of 
Senor  Bonillas.  To  answer  this  I  can  offer 
only  conjectures,  or  rather  I  must  repeat  what 
I  heard  in  Mexico. 

As  the  majority  of  Mexicans  are  firmly  con- 
vinced that  Carranza  is  a  tricky  politician,  be- 
cause of  his  reserve  and  deep-laid  machinations, 
they  give  the  following  explanation  of  his  con- 
duct in  the  Bonillas  affair : 

Bonillas  was  to  be  a  mere  tool  in  the  hands  of 
Don  Venustiano.  He  had  selected  him  for  his 
very  insignificance — because  he  did  not  belong 


THE  CAUSE  OP  THE  REVOLUTION   15 

to  any  party  and  because  he  was  wholly  un- 
known in  the  country.  Bonillas  would  thus  owe 
his  position  entirely  to  his  protector  and  would 
not  be  likely  to  darse  la  vuelta  contra  el — 
in  the  language  of  the  country,  or  as  the  Eng- 
lish say,  to  bite  the  hand  that  fed  him. 

This  business  of  darse  la  vuelta  is  a  Mexican 
game  which  must  be  taken  into  account,  for  the 
country  is  a  famous  hotbed  of  political  treason 
and  there  is  always  fear  that  the  friend  of  to- 
day may  become  the  enemy  of  to-morrow.  If 
you  help  some  one  to  get  along  in  the  world 
in  Mexico  you  are  almost  sure  soon  to  receive 
a  kick  from  him.  He  will  boot  you  to  show  his 
self-respect  and  independence. 

With  the  unknown  Senor  Bonillas  there  was 
no  occasion  to  fear  such  a  kick.  A  creature  of 
Carranza,  he  would  remain  faithful  to  his  chief 
and  he  would  continue  to  surround  himself  with 
a  circle  of  friends  selected  by  his  protector  to 
be  his  advisers  and  guardians. 

Shortsighted  critics  did  not  attribute  this 
purpose  to  Carranza.  They  thought  that  the 
candidacy  of  Bonillas  was  a  stratagem  invented 
for  the  occasion. 

"We  know  the  vie  jo  barbon,"  they  said,  al- 


16  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

hiding  to  Carranza's  white  beard.  "He  has 
launched  the  candidacy  of  Bonillas  for  the  mere 
purpose  of  irritating  Obregon.  Obregon  will 
rise  against  the  Government  and  a  long  war 
will  follow.  Carranza  will  then  declare  that  it 
is  impossible  to  hold  elections  and  will  continue 
in  the  Presidency  indefinitely." 

Carranza  as  a  Second  Diaz 

Others,  more  farsighted,  came  nearer  to  the 
truth,  in  my  judgment,  when  they  discussed  the 
situation. 

"Carranza,"  they  said,  "really  wishes  to  be 
succeeded  in  the  Presidency  by  Bonillas.  Un- 
der the  direction  of  Carranza  and  with  a  legis- 
lature composed  of  Carranza  deputies,  Car- 
ranza will  see  to  it  that  the  Constitution  is  re- 
vised, eliminating  the  article  which  forbids  the 
reelection  of  the  President.  After  the  article 
is  eliminated  Don  Venustiano  will  become  Pres- 
ident again  and  he  will  get  himself  reflected  in- 
definitely. " 

The  method  is  not  new.  Porfirio  Diaz  did 
that  very  thing.  He  began  his  political  career 
by  rising  against  the  reelection  of  Presidents, 
and  after  he  became  the  Chief  Magistrate  of 


THE  CAUSE  OP  THE  REVOLUTION   17 

the  republic  he  yielded  the  place  for  a  brief 
period  to  one  of  his  own  henchmen,  had  his  own 
Constitution  amended,  and  thus  opened  the  way 
for  his  thirty-year  rule. 

I  believe  that  Carranza  really  wanted  Bo- 
nillas  to  succeed  him,  but  I  cannot  refrain  from 
judging  that  in  this  Don  Venustiano  rendered 
his  protege  a  very  poor  service. 

Of  all  the  personages  who  figure  in  this  last 
Mexican  revolution  Bonillas  is  the  man  who  in- 
spires my  deepest  sympathy  on  account  of  his 
misfortune.  His  role  has  been  that  of  certain 
good  though  simple-minded  characters  of  the 
comedy  who  inevitably  pay  for  the  faults  of 
others,  and  who,  despite  their  reluctance  to  get 
mixed  up  in  quarrels,  receive  all  the  blows. 

Why  did  they  not  leave  him  alone?  He  was 
living  so  peacefully  in  Washington  as  the  diplo- 
matic representative  of  Mexico!  His  post 
seemed  destined  to  become  perpetual.  If  Ob- 
regon  were  to  succeed  Carranza  the  General 
would  surely  keep  Bonillas  as  American  Am- 
bassador, because  they  are  both  from  Sonora 
and  have  been  friends  since  their  childhood. 
No  matter  who  might  be  elected  President, 
Bonillas  would  be  kept  in  his  post,  respected  as 


18  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

a  good  man  who  serves  his  country  the  best  lie 
knows  how,  and  who,  residing  abroad,  could 
hold  completely  aloof  from  all  domestic  politi- 
cal quarrels. 

But,  alas !  Don  Venustiano  conceived  the  un- 
happy idea  of  selecting  Bonillas  as  his  succes- 
sor and  of  stirring  the  Ambassador's  ambition, 
dragging  him  away  from  the  sweet  environment 
of  his  family  and  the  noble  tranquillity  of 
Washington. 

Viva  Bonillas,  the  "Tea -Flower"! 

Ten  months  ago  the  Mexicans  were  unaware 
of  the  existence  of  Bonillas.  A  few  knew  that 
a  gentleman  by  that  name  lived  in  the  capital 
of  the  United  States,  and  they  even  suspected 
that  he  had  done  great  things  for  Mexico,  al- 
though they  were  not  quite  sure  what  those 
things  were. 

And,  lo!  all  of  a  sudden  the  Government 
launches  the  name  of  this  man — a  name  that 
arouses  no  echo  in  public  opinion — as  if  Bonil- 
las were  a  providential  personage,  destined  to 
save  the  country. 

The  people  of  Mexico  City  have  a  keen  sense 
of  humor  and  show  a  veritable  genius  for  in- 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  REVOLUTION   19 

venting  nicknames.  Moreover,  the  Spanish 
zarzuela  companies,  the  experts  in  light  and 
comic  opera,  play  a  great  deal  in  the  theaters 
of  the  Mexican  capital,  so  that  the  public  of 
that  city  has  acquired  the  same  keenness  for 
repartee  which  characterizes  the  people  of  the 
popular  quarters  of  Madrid. 

Among  the  songs  written  for  the  zarzuela 
theaters  of  Madrid  there  is  one  which  has  be- 
come extremely  popular  and  is  sung  in  all  the 
theaters  and  music  halls  of  the  Spanish- Ameri- 
can countries.  The  song  tells  the  story  of  a 
poor  shepherd  girl  who  has  been  abandoned  and 
wanders  over  the  face  of  the  earth,  not  know- 
ing where  she  was  born  nor  who  her  parents 
were.  She  knows  nothing  about  herself  except 
her  nickname,  which  is  Flor  de  Te,  or  "Tea 
Flower." 

The  malicious  people  of  Mexico  City  imme- 
diately rechristened  the  Carranza  candidate 
who  had  come  from  foreign  parts,  the  candidate 
who  came  nobody  knew  whence  and  who  was 
going  no  one  knew  whither. 

Viva  Bonillas!  Viva  Flor  de  Te!  Hurray 
for  Bonillas !  Hurray  for  '  '  Tea  Flower ' ' ! 

And  from  that  moment  everybody  lost  re- 


20  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

spect  for  Don  Venustiano's  whiskers  and  for 
the  terrifying  face  he  puts  on  when  he  is  in  bad 
humor. 

In  the  next  article  I  shall  relate  the  tragi- 
comic incidents  through  which  was  born,  grew 
and  died  the  candidacy  of  "Flor  de  Te" — the 
immediate  cause  of  the  revolution. 


H.  THE  SAD  STORY  OP  FLOR  DE  TE 

BONILLAS,  the  candidate  picked  by  Car- 
ranza  to  succeed  him  in  the  Presidency  of 
the  Republic,  is  a  man  who  has  spent  the  great- 
er part  of  his  life  away  from  Mexico.  Early 
in  his  youth  he  left  his  native  country  and  wan- 
dered into  several  of  the  American  Southern 
States,  trying  his  hand  at  various  jobs  in  an 
effort  to  make  an  honest  living  and  managing 
to  eke  out  the  precarious  existence  of  a  worker 
who  is  frequently  forced  to  change  both  resi- 
dence and  occupation.  Later,  when  he  was  no 
longer  in  his  teens,  he  studied  engineering  in 
the  Boston  Institute  of  Technology. 

When  Carranza  rose  against  Huerta,  Bonil- 
las  returned  to  Mexico  and  took  part  in  the 
revolution.  His  record  as  a  fighting  man,  how- 
ever, was  not  brilliant.  He  even  failed  to  be- 
come a  General.  He  merely  served  as  an  engi- 
neer, marching  in  the  rear  of  the  revolution- 
ary army  with  the  obscure  civilians  who  looked 

21 


22  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

after  the  administrative  affairs  of  the  new  re- 
gime. 

After  the  triumph  of  the  revolution,  Car- 
ranza,  who  needed  to  send  to  Washington  a 
loyal  representative  willing  to  obey  instruc- 
tions explicitly,  selected  Bonillas.  The  ap- 
pointee knew  English  better  than  his  native 
tongue  and  he  had  been  educated  in  the  States 
— qualifications,  these,  which  gave  him  a  deci- 
sive advantage  over  all  the  other  aspirants  to 
the  post  of  Ambassador  to  the  United  States. 
And  he  remained  in  this  position  throughout 
the  entire  administration  of  Carranza,  until  the 
latter  conceived  the  notion  of  naming  Bonillas 
his  heir  to  the  Presidential  chair. 

Laugihing  Down  the  Candidate 

I  have  told,  in  a  preceding  article,  how  the 
people  of  Mexico  City,  surprised  at  the  candi- 
dacy of  the  unknown  Bonillas,  gave  him  the 
nickname  of  "Flor  de  Te"  (Tea  Flower).  At 
first  they  called  him  Bonillas  "Tea  Flower,  9 
because  no  one  knew  who  he  was.  Later  on  his 
enemies  claimed  they  knew  his  past  in  its  mi- 
nute details,  and  poor  Senor  Bonillas  became 


THE  SAD  STORY  OF  FLOE  DE  TE        23 

something  worse  than  the  little  shepherd  girl  of 
the  Spanish  song. 

A  campaign  of  truth  and  falsehood  was 
launched  by  the  enemies  of  his  candidacy,  with 
the  vociferous  approval  of  all  those  who  were 
willing  to  jeer  at  anything  to  irritate  Carranza. 
According  to  them,  Bonillas's  name  was  not 
Bonillas  at  all.  He  was  not  even  a  Mexican. 
His  real  name  was  Stanford,  and  he  had 
been  born  in  the  United  States.  Bonillas  was 
the  name  of  his  mother,  whose  blood  was  the 
only  Mexican  blood  that  ran  in  the  candidate's 
veins.  And  the  sympathizers  of  Bonillas 
(friends  of  Carranza,  public  employees  and  sol- 
diers) would  publish  the  genealogy  of  the  Bo- 
nillas family,  beginning  with  the  founder  of  the 
line — a  carpenter  who  came  from  Spain  when 
Mexico  was  still  a  Spanish  colony. 

According  to  his  opponents,  the  Presidential 
candidate  could  not  speak  Spanish.  Every 
morning  the  opposition  press  published  stories 
about  Bonillas  in  which  he  was  featured  as  talk- 
ing Spanish  and  so  altering  the  construction 
and  meaning  of  his  words  as  to  say  the  most 
shocking  things. 


24  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

A   Oallo  for  the  Visitor 

I  myself  served  indirectly  as  a  pretext  for 
this  slanderous  propaganda.  When  a  popular 
foreigner  arrives  in  Mexico  the  university  stu- 
dents generally  treat  him  with  a  gallo.  A 
gallo  is  a  night  procession,  with  torchlights, 
something  between  a  serenade  and  a  masquer- 
ade. It  marches  past  the  balcony  of  the  house 
where  the  honored  guest  is  lodged ;  and  the  stu- 
dents, mounted  on  horseback  or  riding  in  auto- 
mobiles decked  with  flowers  and  flags,  or  on 
trucks  artistically  converted  into  allegorical 
chariots,  sing,  shout  and  make  laudatory  or 
burlesque  speeches  to  the  guest  of  honor;  and 
the  public,  invited  by  the  college  boys,  joins 
the  parade,  with  more  carriages  and  bands  of 
music. 

I  was  treated  to  several  gallos.  The  one 
given  me  in  Mexico  City  was  enormous,  more 
than  15,000  persons  taking  part  in  it.  The 
noisy  nocturnal  procession,  including  some 
long  stops  took  two  hours  to  march  past  the 
Hotel  Regis,  where  I  was  stopping,  occupying 
a  room  next  to  that  of  Bonillas.  The  candidate 
for  the  Presidency  was  not  to  be  found  in  the 


THE  SAD  STORY  OF  FLOR  DE  TE        25 

hotel  at  that  time.  He  had  decided  to  avoid  a 
face-to-face  meeting  with  that  youthful  and  dis- 
respectful crowd,  which  at  sight  of  him  would 
be  sure  to  make  some  insulting  remarks. 

First  came  Don  Quixote  and  his  squire, 
Sancho  Panza ;  next  the  Four  Horsemen  of  the 
Apocalypse ;  and  finally  a  large  number  of  girls, 
dressed  to  represent  the  various  Spanish  pnv 
vincial  types.  But  no  one  gave  a  thought  to 
"Flor  de  Te."  Of  course,  we  were  in  Mexico 
City,  and  Don  Venustiano  was  near  at  hand. 
The  horses  of  the  mounted  police  kept  prancing 
between  the  carriages  in  the  parade. 

Another  with  a  Political  Turn 

A  few  days  later  the  students  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Puebla  gave  me  another  gallo.  Car- 
ranza  was  not  at  hand  there.  Among  the  groups 
of  masks  on  horseback  and  the  carriages  with 
allegories  of  Spain  and  the  Spanish-American 
republics  there  was  a  simple  little  coach,  drawn 
by  one  horse  and  without  any  decoration  what- 
ever. Nevertheless,  it  was  the  chief  attraction 
of  the  parade.  It  was  occupied  by  a  young 
student  attired  in  an  extravagantly  checkered 
suit,  the  traditional  costume  used  in  all  the  the- 


26  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

aters  of  Spanish-speaking  countries  to  repre- 
sent the  conventional  Englishman.  The  mask 
that  covered  his  face  made  the  crowd  hilarious. 

"Flor  de  Te!  Hurrah  for  Flor  de  Te!" 
shouted  the  people,  crowding  around  the  coach. 
And  when  the  procession  filed  past  the  bal- 
conies of  my  hotel  the  youth  stood  up,  and  with 
great  solemnity  began  to  greet  me  in  a  nasal 
tone  and  with  the  halting  speech  of  one  who  is 
not  master  of  the  language  he  is  trying  to  use. 

"Meester  Bonillas,"  said  the  mask,  "greets 
Meester  Ibanez,  whose  works  he  has  read  trans- 
lated into  English.  Within  a  few  months,  per- 
haps, Meester  Bonillas  will  be  able  to  read  them 
in  the  original,  because  he  is  now  studying  the 
language  of  the  country. ? ' 

Made  Mme.  Bonillas  a  Lutheran 

This  is  not  true.  I  chatted  with  Senor  Bo- 
nillas on  more  than  one  occasion  while  we  were 
guests  together  in  the  same  hotel,  and  I  found 
that  he  is  essentially  similar  to  all  his  compatri- 
ots and  can  speak  Spanish  like  the  rest  of  them. 

But,  of  course,  he  could  not  prevent  the  ex- 
travagant fabrications  of  his  political  adver- 
saries. Every  day  they  unearthed  a  new  "se- 


THE  SAD  STORY  OF  FLOR  DE  TE    27 

cret"  from  the  past  of  the  candidate  supported 
by  Carranza, 

"Bonillas  has  been  an  American  citizen  for 
many  years,"  they  would  spring  one  day.  "Bo- 
nillas, during  his  adventurous  career  in  the 
States  bordering  on  the  Mexican  frontier,  was 
even  the  Sheriff  of  a  small  town. ' ' 

The  candidate's  family  did  not  escape  this 
hostile  scrutiny.  It  was  announced  one  day 
that  Sefior  Bonillas  had  married  a  distin- 
guished lady  of  English  nationality  and  be- 
longing to  the  Lutheran  Church.  Her  daugh- 
ters professed  the  same  faith  and  were  not 
Catholics !  Horrors ! 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  bitterest 
enemies  of  Bonillas  are  men  without  any  re- 
ligious faith  whatsoever.  Some  even  distin- 
guished themselves  during  the  revolution  by 
unnecessary  acts  of  cruelty  against  Catholic 
priests.  One  of  Obregon's  Generals,  perhaps 
his  most  intimate  friend,  in  the  first  days  after 
the  triumph  of  the  revolution,  made  a  number 
of  priests  and  friars,  whom  he  considered  ene- 
mies of  the  new  regime,  sweep  the  streets  of  the 
capital.  Moreover,  he  filled  several  cattle  cars 
with  priests  and  sent  them  from  Mexico  City  to 


28  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Vera  Cruz,  making  them  go  without  food  dur- 
ing the  five  days  that  the  trip  lasted.  Despite 
this,  the  loudest  protests  against  the  religious 
faith  of  the  Bonillas  family  came  from  some  of 
these  enemies  who  fear  neither  God  nor  devil. 

"What  an  insult  to  Mexican  women,  who 
are  all  Catholics,"  they  said.  "To  think  of  a 
Protestant  being  the  first  lady  of  the  land!" 

Propaganda  for  Bonillas 

The  reader  must  not  infer  from  the  foregoing 
that  the  candidate  supported  by  Carranza  and 
his  numerous  friends  did  nothing  to  counteract 
this  hostile  propaganda, 

In  reality,  Bonillas  himself  could  not  do  very 
much.  He  adapted  his  personal  conduct  to  the 
trend  of  events  and  followed  the  suggestions 
of  his  protector.  But  the  Bonillas  Campaign 
Committee,  composed  of  Carranza  Generals, 
Senators  and  Deputies  loyal  to  the  cause, 
worked  with  an  energy  never  equaled  in  Mex- 
ico. 

I  must  confess  that  I  have  rarely  seen  a  pub- 
licity campaign  more  enormous  and  better  or- 
ganized than  that  which  advertised  the  name  of 
Bonillas  over  the  whole  republic. 


THE  SAD  STORY  OP  FLOR  DE  TE    29 

When  I  reached  Mexico,  a  few  days  later  than 
the  Carranza  candidate,  I  could  not  hide  my 
surprise  as  I  crossed  the  international  bridge 
and  entered  the  frontier  town  of  Nuevo  Laredo. 
Low,  adobe  houses !  Groups  of  men  with  enor- 
mous hats,  as  broad  as  umbrellas,  sunning 
themselves  with  imperturbable  gravity !  Streets 
with  deep  holes,  over  which  my  automobile 
bounced,  groaning  with  iron  anguish !  And  on 
this  gray  and  monotonous  background,  which 
has  remained  unaltered  for  fifty  years,  a  great 
variety  of  paper  signs,  of  all  colors  and  sizes, 
posted  on  the  doors,  on  the  mud  walls,  and 
even  on  the  ox  carts  standing  in  the  plazas. 

Everywhere  the  portrait  of  a  man,  Bonillas, 
unknown  yesterday,  and  to-day  converted  over- 
night into  a  national  Messiah  by  the  will  of  an- 
other man  living  over  there  in  a  city  of  the 
Mexican  plateau!  This  portrait  bore  under- 
neath it  flattering  promises:  " Democracy," 
"  Peace. "  No  less  numerous  were  the  printed 
statements  couched  in  pompous  and  verbose 
language  to  impress  the  gullible  and  supersti- 
tious rural  masses,  a  majority  of  whom  are 
illiterate. 


30  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Wrilful  Posters  That  Fatted 

Later,  as  I  penetrated  farther  into  the  inte- 
rior, I  observed  how  the  Bonillas  propaganda 
grew  in  intensity  from  one  station  to  another, 
until  I  reached  Mexico  City,  where  it  became 
a  wild  orgy  of  publicity.  Huge  posters,  many 
meters  long,  advised  the  people  in  enormous 
letters  to  vote  for  Bonillas.  Every  open  lot, 
and  every  old  house,  was  covered  with  signs: 
"Bonillas  represents  the  death  of  militarism!" 
"If  you  want  to  see  the  end  of  revolution,  vote 
for  Bonillas. "  As  you  walked  about  the  streets, 
your  eye  wrould  be  caught  by  large,  red  arrows 
pointing  to  something  farther  on.  And  if  you 
followed  their  direction,  you  would  meet  Bonil- 
las's  name  a  few  hundred  yards  ahead.  At 
night  the  picture  of  the  candidate  could  be  seen 
illuminated  by  indirect  light  and  smiling  upon 
you  from  some  balcony. 

This  obsessing  propaganda,  which  met  you 
everywhere,  must  have  been  the  work  of  some 
old  hand  at  the  business.  Many  people  said 
that  the  partisans  of  Bonillas  had  imported  a 
clever  publicity  expert  from  the  United  States. 

Occasionally  your  attention  would  be  arrested 


THE  SAD  STORY  OF  FLOR  DE  TE    31 

by  a  printed  bill  posted  on  the  walls  with  great 
profusion.  The  casual  transient,  even  if  he  did 
not  take  sides  in  the  political  campaign,  felt 
drawn  by  the  novelty  of  the  document.  "The 
Defects  of  the  Engineer  Bonillas."  "What  the 
Engineer  Bonillas  Lacks!" 

Extravagance  That  Hurt  Carranza 

"Well,"  you  would  say,  "it's  high  time  some 
one  said  something  against  this  much-praised 
man. 9 ' 

But  from  the  very  first  lines  of  the  document 
you  discovered  that  the  defects  of  Bonillas  were 
that  he  was  not  a  trouble-making  General  like 
the  "others,"  but  a  man  of  peace  and  honest 
labor ;  and  the  only  things  lacking  in  his  record 
were  the  executions  and  dragonades  so  numer- 
ous in  the  history  of  his  rivals. 

This  extraordinarily  expensive  publicity,  the 
like  of  which  had  never  been  seen  in  Mexico, 
could  not  possibly  have  been  financed  by  Bonil- 
las. His  Campaign  Committee  paid,  but  com- 
posed as  this  committee  was  of  men  who  had 
always  lived  on  the  national  budget,  it  is  not 
likely  that  the  members  made  any  personal  sac- 
rifices. In  short,  everybody  believed  that  Car- 


32  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

ranza  was  defraying  the  campaign  expenses  of 
Bonillas  and  that  he  was  doing  it  with  public 
funds. 

This  system  of  propaganda  was,  at  the  same 
time,  an  indirect  means  of  corruption.  All  the 
great  Mexican  dailies,  even  those  that  were 
hostile  to  the  candidate,  sold  whole  pages  of 
advertising  space  to  the  Bonillas  committee 
and  the  editors  thought  they  were  saving  their 
consciences  by  inserting  a  line  at  the  foot  of  the 
page  stating  that  it  had  been  bought  and  paid 
for  at  advertising  rates  by  the  Bonillas  party. 
The  net  result  of  this  was  that  the  papers  car- 
ried in  their  news  columns  a  few  brief  lines  of 
criticism  against  the  Government  candidate  and 
in  the  rest  of  the  edition  pictures  of  Bonillas 
and  his  friends  and  long  articles  praising  the 
candidate  and  his  policies. 

Millions  Spent  in  Vain 

How  much  was  spent  in  this  campaign? 

The  sympathizers  of  General  Obregon  and 
Pablo  Gonzalez  state  positively  that  Carranza 
had  already  used  $2,000,000  popularizing  his 
candidate,  and  that  he  was  disposed  to  spend  a 
great  deal  more  if  it  became  necessary. 


THE  SAD  STORY  OP  FLOE  DE  TE        33 

The  need  of  incurring  these  extravagant  ex- 
penditures is  even  more  difficult  to  justify  than 
the  merits  of  the  candidate  Bonillas. 

The  mountainous  heaps  of  printed  paper,  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  photographs  and  the 
miles  of  advertisements  were  wholly  useless  as 
aids  in  a  Presidential  election  in  Mexico.  To 
use  the  election  methods  of  a  modern,  politi- 
cally matured  country  in  poor  Mexico,  the  eter- 
nal victim  of  all  sorts  of  tyrannies,  is  about  as 
effective  as  importing  sewing  machines  into  a 
country  where  cloth  is  unknown.  What  is  the 
use  of  such  publicity  in  a  country  that  has  never 
gone  to  the  polls? 

The  Mexican  people,  in  reality,  does  not 
know  what  an  election  means.  During  the  long 
period  of  his  rule  Porfirio  Diaz  always  re- 
elected  himself.  Until  the  unfortunate  Madero 
turned  up,  no  one  dared  to  protest  against  the 
practice. 

Before  Porfirio  Diaz's  time  the  way  to  power 
led  along  the  path  of  revolution,  or  else  the 
elections  were  so  scandalously  immoral  that 
they  provoked  and  justified  uprisings.  Since 
the  close  of  the  Diaz  regime  the  present  elec- 
tion was  the  first  in  the  history  of  Mexico  sched- 


34  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

uled  to  be  carried  on  in  a  modern  way.  We  have 
seen  how  it  developed  into  a  revolution. 

The  great  propaganda  in  favor  of  Bonillas 
seemed  ridiculous,  and  at  times  ironically  sad, 
especially  when  we  consider  the  character  of  the 
country.  So  much  printed  paper  for  a  poor 
people  in  great  part  illiterate,  owing  to  the  neg- 
lect of  its  rulers!  So  much  electioneering, 
when  every  voter  knew  that  his  preference 
counted  for  nothing  and  that  in  the  end  the 
candidate  backed  by  the  Government  would  win 
out!  .  .  . 

To  vote  conscientiously,  the  elector  must  have 
the  conviction  that  his  vote  will  be  respected, 
that  it  will  mean  something.  In  Mexico  the 
man  who  casts  his  ballot  knows  that  he  is  exer- 
cising a  useless  right.  The  result  will  always 
be  what  the  party  in  power  decides.  More- 
over, the  privilege  of  voting  is  a  dangerous 
function.  If  the  man  in  power  gets  wind  of  the 
fact  that  the  voter  is  trying  to  be  independent 
and  think  with  his  own  head,  the  voter  is  soon 
brought  to  his  senses ! 

Obregon  and  Gonzalez  are  right  when  they 
justify  their  uprising  with  the  statement  that 


THE  SAD  STORY  OP  FLOR  DE  TE        35 

the  Government  had  denied  their  candidacies 
the  guarantees  of  security  and  fair  play.  It 
is  true.  Carranza,  who  is  a  stubborn  man,  in- 
capable of  budging  an  inch  after  he  has  once 
made  up  his  mind,  had  decided  that  Bonillas 
should  win,  and  Bonillas  would  have  been  the 
next  President  of  Mexico,  if  the  revolution  had 
not  broken  out.  All  the  States  that  had  Car- 
ranza Governors  would  have  voted  en  masse  for 
Bonillas,  as  though  there  were  no  followers  of 
the  other  candidates  there  at  all. 

But  Obregon  and  Gonzalez  are  no  saints; 
they  were  not  born  yesterday,  and  they  cer- 
tainly are  not  political  infants.  Their  record 
is  almost  as  long  and  brilliant  as  that  of  Don 
Venustiano  and  no  one  knows  what  they  will 
each  cook  up  when  the  elections  are  announced 
again. 

What  can  we  expect  from  a  country  when  it 
has  never  had  an  electoral  body  considered  and 
respected  as  a  vital  and  permanent  institution? 
What  can  we  expect  from  a  country  where  the 
defeated  candidate  always  resorts  to  arms, 
claiming  that  he  has  been  defrauded? 

If  the  elections  prepared  by  Carranza  had 


36  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

taken  place  Bonillas  would  have  won  in  all  the 
Carranza  States.  But  Obregon,  for  instance, 
who  controlled  the  Government  of  the  State  of 
Sonora,  would  have  received  every  single  vote 
cast  there,  and  Bonillas,  who  was  also  born  in 
that  State,  would  not  have  received  a  ballot. 

It  is  possible  that  real  elections  may  be  held 
in  Mexico  in  the  future.  Why  should  we  not 
be  optimistic  about  it?  But  up  to  the  present 
time  no  candidate  has  ever  failed  to  coerce  the 
national  will  by  voting  the  people  in  his  own 
favor  wherever  and  whenever  he  has  had  a 
chance.  And  his  opponents  have  done  the  same 
thing,  under  similar  conditions. 

The  Leper  and  the  Plies 

The  candidacy  of  Bonillas,  however,  had  a 
strength  of  its  own,  aside  from  that  received 
from  the  Government.  This  strength  was  the 
war-weariness  of  a  certain  class  of  people — per- 
haps the  class  most  worthy  of  sympathy — the 
small  merchants  and  poorer  landowners,  the 
lower  middle  class,  which  has  been  suffering  the 
effects  of  an  endless  revolution  for  ten  years. 
I  heard  the  complaints  of  this  class.  I  visited 
some  Mexican  cities  where  this  element  is  pre- 


THE  SAD  STORY  OF  FLOR  DE  TE   37 

ponderant  and  saw  its  efforts  to  live  in  peace 
and  keep  out  of  the  everlasting  turmoil. 

Elections  had  come  again  to  disturb  the  rela- 
tive quiet  to  which  these  people  had  recently 
become  accustomed. 

"Why  should  we  hold  elections?"  some  one 
would  ask  me.  "It  would  be  better  to  have  Don 
Venustiano  continue  in  office.  I  don't  like  him. 
But  he  is  in  already  and  that  is  preferable  to 
starting  all  over  again  with  a  new  one. ' ' 

Many  of  these  people  told  the  old  story  of  the 
leper  which  some  of  my  American  readers,  per- 
haps, do  not  know. 

A  good  Mussulman  takes  pity  on  a  leper 
whpm  he  sees  sitting  motionless  on  the  ground 
with  his  sores  covered  with  flies.  To  alleviate 
the  suffering  of  the  stricken  man,  the  good  Sa- 
maritan drives  away  the  parasites.  But  the 
leper,  instead  of  thanking  his  benefactor,  goes 
into  a  rage  and  heaps  abuse  upon  him  for  his 
officiousness. 

"Why  art  thou  treating  me  as  if  I  were  the 
worst  of  thine  enemies?"  the  leper  cries.  "The 
flies  thou  hast  driven  away  were  already  satis- 
fied. They  were  full  of  my  substance  and  I 
could  endure  them.  But  now  they  will  be  sue- 


38  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

ceeded  by  other  flies  of  ravenous  appetite  and 
my  torments  will  begin  again.  Curses  upon 
thine  head!" 

A  portion  of  the  Mexican  people  had  resigned 
themselves  to  endure  the  torment  of  the  well- 
fed  Carranza  flies.  These  people  did  not  like 
Carranza,  but  they  accepted  the  successor 
picked  by  him  because  they  knew  that  Carran- 
za ?s  successor  and  his  friends  would  prove  less 
voracious  than  the  flies  of  any  opposing  party. 

"If  the  old  man  has  to  go,"  these  people 
would  say,  "we'll  take  Bonillas.  He  hasn't 
done  anything  worth  while,  but  neither  has  he 
done  anything  bad  .  .  .  and,  at  any  rate,  he  is 
not  a  General." 

This  business  of  being  a  General  considerably 
worries  every  Mexican  who  has  witnessed  a 
revolution  without  being  in  it. 

When  Bonillas  Returned 

The  entry  of  Bonillas  into  Mexico  when  he 
returned  from  Washington  as  the  candidate  of 
the  Civil  Party  made  many  people  predict  the 
revolution  which  broke  out  a  month  later.  Never 
was  the  homecoming  of  conquering  hero  pre- 
pared with  greater  care  than  that  of  the  ob- 


THE  SAD  STOHY  OF  FLOR  DE  TE    39 

scure  Mexican-American  engineer,  converted 
by  the  revolution  first  into  a  diplomatic  agent 
and  later  into  a  Presidential  candidate.  A  spe- 
cial train  full  of  admirers  (many  of  whom  had 
never  seen  him  before,  but  who,  nevertheless, 
already  worshiped  him)  was  dispatched  by  the 
Government  to  meet  him  at  the  frontier.  Two 
boys  with  the  rank  of  General  had  charge  of  all 
the  arrangements,  relieving  Don  Venustiano  of 
this  petty  labor.  General  Montes — about  30 — 
perhaps  the  only  one  among  the  revolutionaries 
who  hails  from  a  military  school,  was  the  Pres- 
ident of  the  Comite  Civilista  assigned  to  re- 
ceive Bonillas,  to  accompany  him,  and  fre- 
quently, to  speak  for  him.  General  Barragaii, 
chief  of  the  President's  staff,  organized  the  fes- 
tivities in  Mexico  City.  He  requisitioned  all 
private  automobiles  not  in  use  and  mobilized  all 
the  officials  and  friends  of  the  Government,  con- 
centrating them  in  the  capital. 

I  heard  protests  from  certain  men  of  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  Carranza  forces  about  this  tri- 
umphal reception.  "They  ordered  me,"  one 
said,  "to  fill  twenty  automobiles  with  sympa- 
thizers of  Bonillas.  I  signed  a  receipt  for 
twenty  cars,  and  when  the  time  came  for  the 


40  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

parade  they  sent  me  only  two.  What  became 
of  the  other  eighteen,  which,  undoubtedly,  will 
appear  as  paid  for,  I  don't  know." 

Despite  these  insignificant  slips  the  parade 
was  splendid.  An  interminable  line  of  carriages 
extended  from  the  station  to  the  lodgings  of  the 
candidate.  There  were  hurrahs  for  Bonillas, 
vociferous  vivas  from  members  of  the  police 
force  who  appeared  disguised  in  civilian  clothes 
the  better  to  hide  the  nature  of  their  enthusi- 
asm. There  were  manifestations  of  approval 
and  sympathy  from  all  the  humbler  employees. 
Flowers  were  thrown  by  the  basketful  by  the 
seiioritas  who  were  daughters  of  the  function- 
aries. In  short,  there  was  a  general  stirring  of 
the  masses,  who  are  always  moved  by  the  sound 
of  music  and  the  sight  of  unfurled  flags,  irre- 
spective of  what  the  music  and  the  flags  stand 
for. 

Fiesta  Spoiled  by  Obregon's  Men 

But  the  followers  of  Obregon  decided  to  take 
part  in  the  fiesta.  A  group  of  Generals  and 
Colonels  who  sympathize  with  the  General  went 
to  meet  the  parade. 

These  Mexican  Generals  created  by  the  revo- 


THE  SAD  STORY  OF  FLOR  DE  TE   41 

lntion  are  a  set  of  aggressive,  harebrained 
boys,  brought  into  prominence  by  the  abnormal 
condition  of  civil  war ;  boys  who,  to  go  from  the 
parlor  to  the  dining  room  of  their  homes,  deem 
it  necessary  to  put  on  a  cartridge  belt  and  a 
couple  of  automatic  pistols.  In  a  future  article 
entitled  "The  Generals''  I  shall  describe  this 
original  and  dangerous  type. 

These  warriors  of  the  Obregon  camp  dis- 
turbed the  triumphant  entry  of  Bonillas  with 
pranks  worthy  of  college  boys  celebrating  a 
great  athletic  victory.  First  they  scattered 
handfuls  of  nails  along  the  streets,  which  caused 
many  a  blowout  and  much  delay.  Then  they 
pelted  the  solemn  personages  who  rode  in  the 
carriages  with  sticky,  ill-smelling  projectiles. 
And  when  Bonillas  and  his  staff  appeared  on 
the  balcony  to  address  the  multitude  the  Obre- 
gonists  threw  balls  of  asafcetida  and  worse, 
which  made  the  speakers  cough  and  hem  and 
even  brought  tears  to  the  eyes  of  Flor  de  Te 
and  his  panegyrists. 

The  Bonillas  party  found  it  a  difficult  task  to 
address  the  people.  The  orators  had  to  hold 
their  noses  with  one  hand,  while  they  fanned 
the  air  with  gestures  from  the  other.  And 


42  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

when,  under  this  handicap,  General  Candido 
Aguilar,  the  son-in-law  of  Carranza,  began  to 
expound,  with  military  eloquence,  the  superi- 
ority of  civilian  rule  and  the  necessity  of  sup- 
pressing militarism,  his  hostile  brothers-in- 
arms gave  up  the  offensive  they  had  begun  with 
ill-smelling  ammunition  and  started  another 
with  foul  language. 

In  loud  exclamations  they  inveighed  against 
the  virtue  of  the  mothers  of  the  men  in  Bo- 
nillas's  party — ladies  whom  they  had  never 
seen — and  finally  the  candidate  and  his  parti- 
sans, tired  of  hearing  themselves  called  sons  of 
this  and  sons  of  that,  appealed  to  the  police, 
who  were  anxiously  waiting  for  the  word.  And 
the  disturbers  of  the  meeting  were  hurried  off 
to  jail. 

Open  Breach  with  Carranza 

From  that  moment  things  happened  with 
great  rapidity.  Obregon,  infected  with  an  ora- 
torical fever,  started  through  the  States  in  a 
whirlwind  campaign  in  favor  of  his  candidacy. 
He  did  not  mince  words.  "If  I  am  not  elected 
President,"  he  said,  "it  will  be  because  Don 
Venustiano  has  decided  to  block  me  at  all  costs. 


THE  SAD  STORY  OP  PLOR  DE  TE    43 

But  before  I  let  that  viejo  barbon  trick  me  out 
of  the  Presidency,  I  shall  take  the  field  against 
him." 

And  the  bewhiskered  old  gentleman,  who  has 
a  temper  of  his  own,  retaliated  by  sending  the 
police  to  break  up  the  meetings  of  the  Obregon- 
istas  and  beat  up  their  followers.  Moreover, 
Carranza  got  hold  of  certain  letters  in  which 
it  appeared  that  Obregon  was  in,  alliance  with 
the  chiefs  of  certain  bandit  bands  which  had 
been  defying  the  constituted  authorities.  Tak- 
ing these  as  evidence,  Carranza  issued  an  order 
to  have  Obregon  brought  to  the  capital  and 
court-martialed.  He  was  on  the  point  of  send- 
ing him  to  jail  when  Obregon  escaped, 

I  believe  that  in  the  last  days  of  his  rule,  Car- 
ranza took  special  pains  to  harass  Obregon 
for  the  purpose  of  precipitating  the  revolution 
which  the  latter  was  preparing.  His  policy 
was  to  provoke  an  abortion.  "If  they  intend 
to  rise  against  me,"  Carranza  figured,  "the 
best  thing  I  can  do  is  to  drive  them  to  it  at  once. 
They  will  be  less  prepared  to  fight." 


44  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Bonillas  Put  in  Danger 

During  the  electoral  struggle  between  Obre- 
gon  and  Carranza,  Senor  Bonillas,  the  innocent 
cause  of  the  political  duel,  kept  in  the  back- 
ground, limiting  himself  to  obeying  the  instruc- 
tions of  Montes,  the  President  of  the  Campaign 
Committee,  who,  in  his  turn,  took  orders  from 
Don  Venustiano. 

The  ill-starred  candidate !  On  many  an  occa- 
sion I  saw  him  in  the  hotel  at  luncheon,  sur- 
rounded by  crowds  of  "  enthusiastic  admirers " 
who  came  from  the  provinces  to  get  their  first 
glimpse  of  him.  At  other  times  I  found  him 
alone  with  his  son,  a  young  student,  whom  Bo- 
nillas's  wife  and  daughters  had  undoubtedly 
ordered  to  accompany  his  papa  in  this  adven- 
ture. 

Exhausted  by  the  campaign  activities,  which 
were  a  novel  experience  to  him,  Bonillas  used  to 
go  out  on  some  afternoons  for  an  automobile 
ride  in  the  vicinity  of  Mexico  City.  One  day 
at  dusk  a  group  of  mounted  Obregonistas,  hard- 
ened old  guerrilleros,  tried  to  kidnap  him,  to 
put  him  away  until  after  the  elections.  A  bat- 
tle fit  for  the  movies  ensued  for  the  moment  be- 


THE  SAD  STORY  OP  PLOR  DE  TE    45 

tween  the  would-be  kidnapers  and  the  police 
who  were  escorting  Bonillas  in  other  automo- 
biles. In  the  melee  an  Obregonist  General  was 
captured,  an  old  ranchman  who  happened  to 
find  himself  "by  accident"  on  the  scene  of  the 
fight. 

"You  were  attempting  to  kidnap  Ambassador 
Bonillas,"  the  Chief  of  Police  told  the  Obre- 
gonist General. 

"Kidnap  that  poor  devil!"  the  rural  chief 
replied.  "What  for?  What  could  I  do  with 
him?  ...  If  it  had  been  Don  Venustiano!  ..." 

From  that  day  on,  I  never  saw  Bonillas  again. 
His  partisans  feared  for  his  life.  The  hotel 
was  not  a  safe  place,  and,  therefore,  his  Cam- 
paign Committee,  laying  hands  again  on  the 
public  funds  at  their  disposal,  installed  him  in 
a  private  house. 

The  candidate,  showing  praiseworthy  cool- 
ness in  the  presence  of  dangers  which  his  fol- 
lowers probably  exaggerated,  gave  constant 
proof  of  great  loyalty  and  obedience  to  Car- 
ranza. 

"Where  are  you  taking  me  to-day?  Where 
does  Don  Venustiano  wish  me  to  go?"  he  would 
ask. 


46  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Perils  of  Campaign  Tour 

At  first  he  attended  several  meetings  in  Mex- 
ico City,  packed  with  well-trained  adherents  of 
the  Government.  Later  on,  he  was  obliged  to 
go  to  the  capitals  of  several  States  to  counter- 
act with  his  presence  the  effects  of  Obregon's 
campaign.  And  here  was  where  his  real  suf- 
ferings and  dangers  began. 

It  seems  that  the  personnel  of  the  railways  is 
largely  Obregonista.  Moreover,  Mexicans  do 
not  need  to  belong  to  the  Eailway  Union  to  learn 
how  to  cut  a  railway  line.  To  blow  up  a  train 
with  dynamite  or  to  destroy  in  short  order  a 
dozen  miles  or  so  of  railroad  track,  has  come  to 
be  a  national  art  within  the  reach  of  everybody. 
Ten  years  of  revolution  have  provided  ample 
schooling  for  the  purpose. 

The  Bonillas  train  endured  the  most  romantic 
trials  and  tribulations  on  its  journey  over  the 
interior  States.  In  one  place  the  locomotive 
would  come  to  a  stop  barely  in  time  to  avoid 
rushing  over  a  section  of  vanished  track ;  at  an- 
other point,  the  train  would  narrowly  escape 
plunging  into  a  pit ;  later  still,  it  would  be  totally 


THE  SAD  STORY  OP  FLOR  DE  TE   47 

wrecked,  with  loss  of  lives  among  the  military 
escort. 

Finally,  the  Obregon  coup  surprised  Bonillas 
while  he  was  conducting  his  campaign  in  the 
State  of  Jalisco.  The  enemy  cut  off  the  retreat 
of  the  train  by  lifting  a  few  rails,  and  the  Car- 
ranza  candidate  had  to  return  over  the  rough 
country  to  the  capital  in  an  automobile. 

After  this  Bonillas  disappeared  entirely  from 
the  public  eye.  He  continued  to  reside  in  Mex- 
ico City,  but  who  had  time  to  think  of  him? 

The  attention  of  the  entire  country  was  now; 
fixed  on  Carranza  and  Obregon.  War  had 
broken  out.  Montes,  the  President  of  the  Cam- 
paign Committee,  had  taken  command  of  a 
body  of  troops.  Candido  Aguilar,  Bonillas 's 
war-like  orator,  had  gone  to  Vera  Cruz  to  re- 
cruit forces  for  his  father-in-law,  Carranza. 

And  Where  Is  Bonillas  Now? 

Nothing  more  has  been  heard  about  Senor 
Bonillas.  As  he  was  in  Mexico  City,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  unless  he  got  out  with  Carranza  he  has 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  his  triumphant  enemies. 

He  lived  so  happily  in  Washington  before 


48  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Carranza  singled  him  out  for  the  honor  of  run- 
ning for  President!  How  he  and  Ms  family 
must  miss  those  happy  days  which  now  seem  so 
far  off  and  which,  nevertheless,  were  passing 
only  a  few  months  ago ! 

His  life  is  not  in  danger;  he  does  not  run 
the  slightest  risk.  The  successful  revolution- 
aries, if  they  have  captured  him  in  Mexico  City, 
must  have  thoughts  about  their  prisoner  simi- 
lar to  those  expressed  by  the  rustic  General 
arrested  by  the  police  at  the  time  of  the  at- 
tempted kidnaping.  "What  can  we  do  with 
this  poor  devil?  ...  If  we  had  Don  Venu- 
stanio!" 

Moreover,  Bonillas  and  Obregon  hail  from 
the  same  State,  Sonora,  and  they  have  known 
each  other  since  they  were  boys.  I  know  that 
Obregon  likes  Bonillas,  but  I  don't  think  that 
Obregon 's  affection  can  be  flattering  to  the 
vanity  of  Bonillas. 

"A  nice  fellow,  my  friend  Bonillas, "  said 
Obregon  to  me  one  day.  "He  is  reliable,  con- 
scientious and  hard-working.  The  world  has 
lost  a  first-class  bookkeeper.  ...  If  I  ever  be- 
come President  of  the  Eepublio  I  shall  make 
him  cashier  in  some  bank." 


HI.    "  CITIZEN  "  OBREGON 

I  MET  Obregon  two  days  before  he  fled  from 
Mexico  City,  declaring  himself  in  open  re- 
bellion against  the  authority  of  President  Car- 
ranza. 

At  the  time  of  my  arrival  in  Mexico  Obre- 
gon was  campaigning  for  his  election  in  distant 
States  of  the  republic.  Several  friends  of  mine, 
who  are  enthusiastic  followers  of  the  General, 
were  anxious  to  have  me  meet  and  hear  their 
idol.  "As  soon  as  Obregon  comes  back,"  they 
said,  "we'll  arrange  a  luncheon  or  dinner  so 
that  you  two  men  may  meet  and  know  each 
other. ' ' 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Obregon  did  not  return ; 
he  was  forcibly  brought  back  to  the  capital  by 
Carranza,  who  decided  to  try  him  for  complicity 
with  the  rebels  who  had  been  in  arms  for  some 
time  against  the  Government.  This  was  an 
effective  means  of  putting  an  end  to  the  cam- 
paign of  insults  and  threats  that  Obregon  had 
been  conducting  in  various  States. 

49 


50  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

The  forcible  return  of  Obregon  to  Mexico 
City  caused  great  excitement  among  the  people 
of  the  capital  and  stirred  their  curiosity  even 
more. 

"What  next!"  they  asked.  "Will  the  old 
man  have  courage  enough  to  send  Obregon  to 
jail  and  put  him  out  of  the  running  in  that  way? 
Will  Obregon  start  a  revolution  to  preserve  his 
personal  liberty!" 

And  when  many  were  asking  themselves  these 
questions  with  a  certain  anxiety,  fearing  the 
consequences  of  a  final  break  between  the  mas- 
ter Carranza  and  his  old  pupil  Obregon,  my 
Obregonista  friends  came  to  notify  me  that  they 
had  arranged  my  interview  with  their  hero. 

"The  General  expects  you  to  take  luncheon 
with  him  to-morrow,"  they  told  me. 

Luncheon  with  the  National  Hero 

I  had  insisted  that  the  luncheon  take  place  in 
a  public  restaurant,  in  full  view  of  everybody, 
to  avoid  the  possibility  of  false  interpretations. 
If  the  luncheon  were  given  in  a  private  house 
to  many  people  it  might  seem  that  I  had  a  cer- 
tain predilection  for  Obregon.  There  was  no 
reason  whatever  why  I  should  figure  as  a  Car- 


"  CITIZEN "  OBREGON  51 

ranzista  or  an  Obregonista.  My  wishes  were 
more  than  amply  fulfilled.  The  luncheon  was 
held  in  the  Bac,  the  most  centrally  located  res- 
taurant in  the  capital.  To  make  it  even  less 
secret,  it  was  decided  to  have  it  in  the  main 
dining  room,  near  the  orchestra  platform,  rath- 
er than  in  a  private  room. 

Obregon  was  at  that  time  a  personage  in  dis- 
grace. It  was  true  that  he  might  rise  again  at 
any  moment,  but  it  was  equally  possible  that  he 
might  be  down  for  the  full  count.  He  had  en- 
thusiastic friends,  but  he  had  also  against  him, 
"old  man"  Carranza,  an  enemy  of  tenacious 
hatreds  and  indomitable  energy.  The  mysteri- 
ous hour  when  public  opinion  shakes  off  its  in- 
ertia and  swings  unexpectedly  to  one  side  or 
the  other  had  not  yet  struck.  The  timid  were 
still  holding  aloof;  the  crafty  were  making  their 
calculations,  but  had  not  yet  succeeded  in  dis- 
pelling their  own  doubts. 

Obregon  was  still  an  unknown  quantity.  If 
you  sided  with  him  you  might  climb  to  a  posi- 
tion in  the  Cabinet,  but  you  also  might  walk  to 
a  place  in  front  of  the  firing  squad.  The  shrewd 
ones  were  waiting  for  the  atmosphere  to  clear 
a  little,  and  Obregon  could  count  only  on  his 


52  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

personal  following,  the  friends  who  had  been 
faithful  to  him  through  thick  and  thin.  The 
men  who  watch  the  trend  of  events  from  a  point 
of  vantage  and  eagerly  await  the  psychological 
moment  to  rush  to  the  succor  of  the  sure  winner 
had  not  yet  heard  the  call. 

The  Disconcerting  Obregon 

When  I  entered  the  restaurant  I  saw  Obre- 
gon sitting  at  a  table  with  a  friend  to  whom  he 
was  explaining  the  fine  points  of  a  cocktail 
which  the  General  himself  had  invented.  The 
reader  must  not  jump  at  conclusions  and  infer 
.that  Obregon  is  a  drunkard  because  I  found 
him  so  engaged.  I  believe  he  drinks  very  little. 
During  the  luncheon  he  took  beer  in  preference 
to  wine,  and  on  several  occasions  he  called  for 
water.  But  as  a  warrior  who  has  lived  in  the 
open  air,  suffering  the  rigor  of  inclement 
weather  and  spending  whole  nights  without 
sleep,  he  likes  to  take  a  casual  drink  from  time 
to  time  to  tune  up  his  nervous  system. 

It  would  be  equally  erroneous  to  imagine  him 
as  a  Mexican  chieftain  of  the  type  which  we 
so  frequently  see  in  the  movies  and  vaudevilles 
— a  copper-colored  personage  with  slanting 


14 CITIZEN"  OBREGON  53 

eyes  and  thick,  stiff  hair,  sharp  as  an  awl;  in 
short,  an  Indian  dressed  up  like  a  comic-opera 
General.  Obregon  is  nothing  of  the  sort;  he  is 
white,  so  positively  white  that  it  is  difficult  to 
conceive  his  having  a  single  drop  of  Indian 
blood  in  his  veins.  He  is  so  distinctively  Span- 
ish that  he  could  walk  in  the  streets  of  Madrid 
without  any  one  guessing  that  he  hailed  from 
the  American  hemisphere. 

"My  grandparents  came  from  Spain,"  he 
told  me.  "I  don't  know  from  which  province. 
Other  people  bother  their  heads  a  great  deal 
about  their  ancestors.  They  imagine  they  come 
from  noble  stock  and  claim  descent  from  Span- 
ish Dukes  and  Marquises.  I  know  only  that 
my  people  came  from  Spain.  They  must  have 
been  poor  folk  driven  to  emigrate  by  sheer  hun- 
ger." 

The  personage  began  to  reveal  himself.  Ob- 
regon is  a  man  who  is  always  trying  to  amaze 
his  hearer,  now  with  explosions  of  pride,  now 
with  strokes  of  unexpected  humility.  The  im- 
portant thing  for  him  is  to  be  disconcerting,  to 
say  something  that  his  listeners  are  not  expect- 
ing to  hear. 


§4  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Close-Up  of  the  Idol 

He  is  still  young — not  quite  40.  He  has  a 
strong  and  exuberant  constitution.  You  can 
see  at  once  that  the  man  is  brimming  over  with 
vitality.  A  slight  varicosis  has  colored  his 
cheeks  with  a  number  of  slender,  red  veins, 
which  give  a  reddish  tint  to  his  complexion. 
His  enemy  Don  Venustiano  suffers  also  from 
varicosis  of  the  face,  but  his  nose  is  the  only 
feature  that  shows  it  prominently.  It  is  fur- 
rowed by  a  series  of  red,  blue  and  green  veins 
that  remind  you  of  the  wavy  lines  on  a  hydro- 
graphic  map.  All  aggressive  men  have  a  more 
or  less  close  resemblance  to  birds  and  animals 
of  prey.  Some  are  thin  and  sharp  beaked,  like 
hawks.  Others  have  the  mane  and  the  arro- 
gance of  the  lion.  A  few  are  lithe  and  myste- 
rious,  like  the  tiger.  Obregon,  with  his  short, 
thick  neck,  broad  shoulders  and  small,  sharp 
eyes,  which  on  occasion  emit  fierce  glints,  re- 
minds you  of  a  wild  boar. 

Obregon  is  single  and  lives  the  life  of  a  sol- 
dier, attended  by  one  aid,  an  ex-ranchman  who 
is  even  rougher  than  he.  As  Obregon  has  only 
one  arm,  and,  consequently,  cannot  devote  more 


"CITIZEN"  OBREGON  55 

than  one  hand  to  the  care  of  his  person,  the 
"hero  of  Celaya" — as  he  is  frequently  called — 
is  rather  slovenly  in  appearance.  In  his  mili- 
tary uniform  he  may  look  better.  The  man  I 
met  wore  a  dirty  and  much-worn  Panama  hat, 
baggy  trousers  and  a  shabby  coat,  one  of  whose 
sleeves  hung  empty,  showing  that  the  arm  had 
been  amputated  near  the  shoulder. 

Obregon's  apparent  contempt  for  all  person- 
al adornment  is  characteristic  of  the  man.  An- 
other reason  for  his  carelessness  in  matters  of 
dress  is  his  desire  to  flatter  the  Mexican  popu- 
lace, who  consider  that  his  slovenly  garb  brings 
him  closer  to  them. 

The  missing  arm  enables  the  people  to  recog- 
nize Obregon  at  a  distance.  They  greet  him 
enthusiastically  whenever  they  see  him.  Obre- 
gon is  the  conqueror  of  Pancho  Villa;  he  is 
the  man  who  broke  up  the  military  power  that 
came  near  placing  that  old  cattle  rustler  in 
the  Presidential  chair  of  the  republic. 

Villa,  Defeated,  Almost  Forgotten 

Villa  is  almost  forgotten  in  Mexico.  He  is 
talked  about  more  in  the  United  States  than 
in  his  own  country.  A  few  years  ago  he  was 


56  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

"The  General"  among  all  Generals,  and  many 
even  spoke  enthusiastically  of  his  military  tal- 
ent, seeing  in  him  the  man  who  would  take  it 
upon  himself  to  exterminate  any  foreigner  dar- 
ing to  invade  the  soil  of  the  nation.  Now  he 
is  nothing  but  a  bandit  and  people  avoid  all 
reference  to  him.  He  will  continue  to  make 
trouble,  but  his  star  has  surely  set.  Obregon 
defeated  him  in  ten  bloody  skirmishes,  mis- 
named battles,  and  this  was  sufficient  to  make 
Obregon  the  hero  of  the  hour.  Moreover,  Pan- 
cho  Villa  has  escaped  bodily  injury;  he  has 
all  his  limbs.  With  insolent  good  luck  he  has 
kept  out  of  the  way  of  bullets.  Obregon,  on 
the  contrary,  has  only  one  arm,  thus  adding 
to  his  heroic  record  the  sympathy  that  the 
martyr  arouses. 

I  sat  down  and  the  luncheon  began,  a  lunch- 
eon that  started  at  noon  and  lasted  until  4. 

Don  Venustiano,  always  suspicious,  as  is  nat- 
ural in  the  head  of  a  nation  where  every  one 
is  likely  to  darse  la  vuelta  — to  betray — and 
no  one  knows  with  certainty  who  is  his  friend 
and  who  is  his  enemy,  spoke  to  me  a  few  days 
later  about  this  luncheon.  I  was  the  one  to 


"CITIZEN"  OBREGON  57 

broach  the  subject.  I  told  him  frankly  that  I 
had  lunched  with  one  of  his  enemies. 

"I  know,"  he  replied.  "But  what  the  devil 
did  you  have  to  talk  about  that  it  took  you  four 
whole  hours?" 

And  he  scrutinized  my  eyes  as  though  he 
were  trying  to  read  my  thoughts. 

Obregon 's  Debut  in  Chick-peas 

In  reality  Obregon  had  nothing  interesting 
to  tell  me.  But  he  is  such  a  character!  It  is 
so  agreeable  to  sit  and  listen  hours  and  hours 
to  his  animated,  lively  and  picturesque  con- 
versation, which  is  more  Spanish  than  Mexican. 

He  had  selected  the  table  near  the  orchestra 
so  that  he  could  give  orders  to  the  musicians. 
He  was  anxious  to  show  me  that  he  was  not 
an  ignorant  soldier  and  that  he  loved  music — 
Mexican  music,  of  course,  for  other  kinds  of 
music  mean  little  to  him.  And  while  the  or- 
chestra played  the  "Jarabe,"  the  "Cielito" 
and  the  "Maiianitas" — Mexican  national  airs 
— Obregon  talked  and  talked,  swallowing  mean- 
while pieces  of  food  that  he  had  an  attend- 
ant cut  for  him,  as  he  can  use  only  one  hand. 


58  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

The  General  is  invincible  in  conversation.  I 
can  talk  a  great  deal  myself,  but  I  was  forced 
to  withdraw  before  his  onslaught,  as  thor- 
oughly defeated  as  Pancho  Villa  himself.  I 
listened. 

He  told  me  the  story  of  his  youth.  He  is 
sure  that  he  was  born  to  be  the  first  every- 
where. He  does  not  say  so  himself,  but  he 
helps  you  to  suspect  it  with  modest  insinua- 
tions. In  Sonora  he  was  a  trader  in  garbanzos 
—chick-peas — and  although  he  made  rather 
small  profits,  he  is  sure  that  he  would  have 
become  eventually  the  first  merchant  in  Mexico 
— a  great  millionaire. 

"You  see,  the  revolution  spoiled  all  that  for 
me.  I  then  became  a  soldier  and  I  rose  to  be  a 
General." 

What  he  neglected  to  add  was  that,  in  spite 
of  his  General's  commission,  he  remained  in 
business  just  the  same,  and  his  enemies  affirm 
that  he  has  realized  his  ambition  to  become  a 
millionaire.  He  has  a  monopoly  at  present  of 
all  the  chick-pea  trade  in  Mexico.  The  peas 
are  exported  to  Spain,  where  garbanzos,  as 
they  are  called,  are  an  article  of  common  con- 
sumption. The  same  enemifis  assert  that  all 


"  CITIZEN"  OBREGON  59 

the  farmers  in  Mexico  are  obliged  to  sell  their 
garbanzos  to  Obregon,  at  a  price  which  he 
himself  fixes.  That  is  the  advantage  of  being 
a  hero  and  of  losing  an  arm  in  defense  of  the 
Constitution. 

"All  of  Us  Thieves,  More  or  Less" 

However,  I  shall  not  dwell  on  what  Obregon 's 
enemies  say  about  him.  The  General  went  on 
talking  about  himself.  He  has  a  line  of  risque 
stories  which  he  tells  with  a  brutal  frankness 
smacking  of  the  camp  and  the  bivouac.  They 
helped  me  to  understand  the  popularity  of  the 
man.  He  talks  that  way  with  everybody,  with 
the  women  of  the  street,  with  the  workingmen 
he  meets,  with  the  peasants  in  the  country,  and 
those  simple  people  swell  with  pride  at  being 
treated  with  such  familiarity  and  at  hearing 
such  amusing  stories  from  a  national  hero,  the 
conqueror  of  Celaya,  a  former  Minister  of  War, 
and  a  man  who  has  only  one  arm ! 

"They  have  probably  told  you  that  I  am  a 
bit  of  a  thief. " 

Taken  somewhat  aback,  I  looked  around  in 
surprise  to  make  sure  it  was  really  Obregon 
who  had  said  that,  and  that  he  had  said  it  to 


60  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

me.  I  hesitated,  not  knowing  really  what 
answer  to  make. 

"Yes,"  he  insisted.  "You  have  heard  that 
story  without  a  doubt.  All  of  us  are  thieves, 
more  or  less,  down  here." 

"Why,  General,"  I  said,  with  a  gesture  of 
protest,  "I  never  pay  any  attention  to  gossip! 
All  lies,  I  am  sure." 

But  Obregon  ignored  what  I  was  saying,  and 
continued : 

"The  point  is,  however,  I  have  only  one, 
hand,  wlile  the  others  have  two.  That's  why 
people  prefer  me.  I  can't  steal  so  much  or  so 
fast." 

A  burst  of  laughter!  Obregon  saluted  his 
own  witticism  with  the  reserved  hilarity  of  a 
cynical  boy,  while  his  two  friends  who  were 
with  us  paid  tribute  to  the  hero's  jest  with 
endless  boisterousness. 

Joke  of  the  Itching  Palm 

This  oratorical  success  made  the  General  still 
more  talkative.  He  insisted  on  treating  me  to 
more  stories,  perhaps  to  show  me  that  he  held 
the  gossip  about  him  in  contempt,  perhaps  to 
enjoy  the  pleasure  of  surprising  and  embar- 


"CITIZEN"  OBREGON  61 

rassing  me  by  the  spectacle  of  a  man  depreciat- 
ing himself. 

"You  probably  don't  know  how  they  fonnd 
the  hand  I  lost!" 

In  reality,  I  did  know,  just  as,  for  that  mat- 
ter, I  had  already  heard  the  joke  about  his 
being  more  honest  than  the  others  because  he 
had  only  one  hand.  But  in  order  not  to  spoil 
the  General's  delight  in  his  own  brilliancy  I 
assured  him  I  did  not  know  the  story. 

"You  know  I  lost  my  arm  in  battle.  It  was 
carried  off  by  a  shell  which  exploded  near  me 
while  I  was  talking  with  my  staff.  After  giving 
me  the  first  treatments,  my  men  set  out  to  find 
my  arm  on  the  ground.  They  looked  about  in 
all  directions,  but  couldn't  find  it  anywhere. 
Where  could  the  hand  and  its  fragment  of  arm 
have  gone  to  ? 

"  'I'll  find  it  for  you/  said  one  of  my  aids, 
an  old  friend  of  mine.  'It  will  come  back  by 
itself.  Watch  me!' 

"He  took  out  of  his  purse  a  ten-dollar  gold 
piece,  an  aztec,  as  we  call  it,  and  raised  it  above 
his  head.  At  once  a  sort  of  bird,  with  five 
wings,  rose  from  the  ground.  It  was  my  miss- 
ing hand,  which  had  not  been  able  to  resist  the 


62  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

temptation  to  fly  from  its  hiding  place  and  seize 
a  gold  coin. ' ' 

A  second  ovation  from  the  guests !  And  the 
man  with  the  one  arm  exploded  with  laughter 
at  the  naughty  prank  of  his  missing  hand,  and, 
not  to  be  discourteous  to  its  former  owner,  I 
laughed  as  well. 

The  Ambassador's  Missing  Watch 

"And  you  never  heard  how  the  Spanish  Am- 
bassador lost  his  watch?" 

I  could  see  what  Obregon  was  driving  at. 
This  story  was  to  be  not  at  his  own  expense, 
but  against  "that  other  fellow,"  his  enemy  and 
persecutor.  However,  I  pretended  to  be  quite 
innocent,  so  that  the  General  could  have  the 
pleasure  of  telling  the  story. 

"A  new  Minister  from  Spain  had  just  pre- 
sented his  credentials,  and  President  Carranza 
was  anxious  to  welcome  him  with  a  great  offi- 
cial banquet.  The  thing  had  to  be  done  well. 
Spain  had  been  the  first  European  nation  to 
recognize  Don  Venustiano's  Government  after 
the  revolution." 

As  I  listened  to  the  hero  I  thought  of  the 
grand  dining  hall  of  the  palace  at  Chapultepec, 


11  CITIZEN  "  OBREGON  63 

which  recalls  the  tragic  days  of  Maximilian, 
the  Austrian  Emperor  of  Mexico.  I  could  see 
Don  Venustiano  in  evening  dress,  with  his 
white  beard  and  red-white-and-green  nose, 
seated  opposite  the  Spanish  Ambassador,  and 
beside  the  latter,  Obregon,  Minister  of  War; 
Candido  Aguilar,  Minister  of  Foreign  Rela- 
tions ;  the  elegant  Barragan,  in  a  new  nnif onn 
bought  for  the  occasion,  and  all  the  other  digni- 
taries created  by  the  First  Chief. 

"Suddenly,"  continued  Obregon,  "the  Span- 
ish diplomat  raised  his  hand  to  his  vest,  and 
grew  pale.  'Caramba!'  he  exclaimed.  'My 
watch  is  gone!'  It  was  an  antique  timepiece, 
gold  and  inset  with  diamonds,  an  heirloom  in 
the  Ambassador's  family. 

"Complete  silence!  First  he  looks  at  me, 
for  I  am  sitting  next  to  him.  But  I  have  an 
arm  missing,  and,  as  it  happens,  on  the  side 
nearest  the  Ambassador.  I  cannot  have  taken 
his  watch !  Then  he  looks  at  Candido  Aguilar, 
Don  Venustiano 's  son-in-law,  who  is  sitting  on 
the  other  side.  Aguilar  still  has  both  his  arms, 
but  one  of  his  hands,  and  by  chance  the  one 
next  to  the  Ambassador,  is  almost  paralyzed. 
Neither  can  he  be  the  pick-pocket!  Convinced 


64  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

that  lie  must  say  good-by  forever  to  his  lost 
jewelry,  the  Spanish  Minister  sat  out  the  rest 
of  the  meal  cursing  desperately  under  his 
breath. 

"  'They  have  stolen  my  watch.  This  is  not 
a  Government.  This  is  a  den  of  thieves!' 

"When  they  got  up  from  the  table  Don  Venu- 
stiano,  with  his  usual  dignified  and  venerable 
bearing,  stepped  up  to  the  Ambassador  and 
whispered,  'Here  you  are,  but  say  nothing  more 
about  it. ? 

"The  diplomat  could  not  contain  his  aston- 
ishment and  admiration!  'It  was  not  the  man 
on  my  right !  It  was  not  the  man  on  my  left ! 
It  was  the  man  across  the  table  in  front  of  me ! 
Oh,  my  dear  Mr.  President,  quite  rightly  do 
they  call  you  the  First  Chief.'  " 

If  the  laughter  at  a  joke  on  Obregon  had  been 
noisy,  that  for  a  joke  on  Carranza  resembled 
a  cannonade. 

There  is  no  doubt  about  it.  Obregon  is  an 
excellent  table  companion.  His  amusing  chat- 
ter is  inexhaustible. 

Leaving  his  stories,  he  went  on  to  the  sub- 
ject of  his  election  campaign.  He  is  as  proud 


"CITIZEN"  OBREGON  65 

of  his  speeches  as  he  is  of  his  triumphant  bat- 
tles. The  General  is  a  born  orator,  and  like  all 
self-educated  men  who  take  up  reading  late  in 
life,  he  noticeably  prefers  the  sonorous,  theatri- 
cal sentence  which  never  says  anything. 

He  invited  me  to  attend  one  of  his  election 
meetings  to  hear  him  speak  to  a  crowd.  At  the 
moment  he  had  on  his  mind  a  great  parade 
which  the  laborers  of  the  capital  were  prepar- 
ing in  his  honor.  It  was  to  be  headed  by  1,500 
Mexican  women — all  the  dressmakers  in  the 
city.  The  women  of  Mexico  feel  a  purely  spirit- 
ual inclination  toward  this  plain-speaking 
soldier,  who  treats  every  one  as  his  equal. 

He  expounded  his  platform  to  me  volubly: 
democracy — enforcement  of  the  law — realiza- 
tion of  the  promises  made  by  the  revolution, 
and  which  the  "old  chief"  had  forgotten — dis- 
tribution of  lands  to  the  poor.  The  real  reason, 
for  his  candidacy,  the  argument  that  has  great- 
est weight  with  him,  he  never  mentioned,  but  I 
could  read  it  in  his  eyes. 

"Besides,"  Obregon  undoubtedly  says  to 
himself,  "besides,  I  made  Don  Venustiano 
President.  I  took  him  in  triumph  from  Vera 


66  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Cruz  to  the  Presidential  chair  in  Mexico  City. 
He  became  President  through  my  efforts.  Now 
it  is  my  turn.  Isn't  that  fair?" 

He  Is  an  Author,  Too 

Since  the  General  had  already  forgotten  his 
jokes  and  stories  and  had  now  to  speak  with 
the  seriousness  befitting  a  Chief  Executive,  he 
gradually  and  imperceptibly  passed  from  ora- 
tory to  literature.  The  General  became  a  i '  col- 
league "  of  mine,  a  man  of  letters.  He  has  writ- 
ten a  book  telling  the  story  of  his  campaigns. 
That  has  been  the  custom  of  all  victorious  war- 
riors since  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar.  Why 
should  he  not  also  indulge  in  a  set  of  "Com- 
mentaries"? 

He  promised  to  send  me  a  copy  of  his  book. 
But  to  forestall  the  chance  that  his  difficulties 
with  Carranza  might  prevent  him  from  keeping 
the  promise,  he  went  on  to  give  me  an  idea  of 
the  book  in  advance. 

He  said  that  he  expressed  himself  simply 
and  with  modesty.  Of  course  his  battles  could 
not  be  compared  with  those  of  the  European 
war.  .  .  .  "I  also  realize  that  I  am  only  an 
amateur  in  the  military  business,  a  civilian, 


"CITIZEN91  OBREGON  67 

forced  to  take  up  arms — Citizen  Obregon  pro- 
moted to  be  a  General:  and  doubtless  I  had 
strokes  of  sheer  luck ! ' 9 

I  was  listening  to  Obregon  with  real 
affection.  I  was  regarding  him  as  the  most 
attractive  and  most  able  man  among  all  the 
Mexican  Generals  made  by  the  national  up- 
heaval. But  suddenly  the  wind  changed.  Men 
never  get  really  to  know  each  other.  Obregon 
began  to  twirl  his  sharp-pointed,  upturning 
mustache,  and  smiling  in  pride  at  his  own 
modesty,  he  lay  back  on  his  divan. 

"When  I  was  Minister  of  War,  at  a  banquet 
at  the  President's  house  one  day,  the  Dutch 
representative,  who  was  a  military  man,  came 
up  to  me  and  said,  '  General,  from  what  branch 
of  the  service  did  you  come — artillery,  cav- 
alry V  In  view  of  my  victories  he  thought  I 
must  be  a  professional  soldier.  Imagine  his 
astonishment  when  I  told  him  I  had  been  a 
chick-pea  dealer  in  Sonora !  He  refused  to  be- 
lieve it." 

More  About  His  Great  Book 

The  General  stopped  a  moment  to  enjoy  the 
impression  his  words  were  making  on  us. 


68  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

"Another  time  the  German  Minister  came 
to  see  me.  You  doubtless  know  him  by  repu- 
tation, Mr.  Ibaiiez." 

"Very  well  indeed,"  I  replied.  "He  was  the 
fellow  who  during  the  late  war  suggested  to 
the  Mexican  Government  the  possibility  of  re- 
covering California  and  Arizona.  He  used  to 
appear  at  public  ceremonies  in  a  great  Prus- 
sian uniform  with  decorations,  to  receive  the 
applause  of  a  paid  claque  or  an  ignorant  crowd 
which  was  always  hissing  the  plain  black  eve- 
ning dress  of  the  diplomatic  representative  of 
the  United  States." 

"Well,"  said  Obregon,  "the  German  came 
to  see  me,  and  in  his  short  abrupt  accent  said 
to  me:  '  General,  I  have  read  your  book,  and 
I  need  two  copies  of  it,  one  for  my  Emperor 
and  the  other  for  the  archives  of  the  German 
General  Staff.  The  people  back  in  Berlin  are 
much  interested  in  you.  They  are  astounded 
that  a  plain  civilian,  without  military  training, 
has  been  able  to  conduct  such  noteworthy  and 
original  campaigns/  " 

"I  suppose  you  gave  him  the  books?" 

"No,  I  don't  care  for  honors  like  that.  I 
told  him  he  could  find  them  in  the  bookstores 


"CITIZEN"  OBREGON  69 

if  he  wanted  them.  And  I  suppose  he  bought 
them  and  sent  them  on  home." 

What  a  farceur  that  shrewd  German  was ! 

The  hero  doubtless  remembered  my  hatred 
of  German  militarism,  so  to  emphasize  his  im- 
partiality he  jumped  to  the  Far  East. 

"The  Japanese  Minister  also  asked  my  per- 
mission to  translate  the  book  into  Japanese. 
My  campaigns  seem  to  have  aroused  a  good 
deal  of  interest  over  there." 

"Has  the  translation  appeared  yet?"  I  in- 
quired. 

"I  don't  know.  I  don't  bother  about  such 
matters." 

Popular  Appeal  of  a  "Bad  Man" 

A  long  silence.  I  sat  looking  somewhat  dis- 
concertedly  at  this  man,  so  complex  for  all  of  his 
primitive  simplicity,  who  alarms  you  at  one 
moment  by  his  craftiness  and  at  the  next  aston- 
ishes you  by  his  complete  ingenuousness. 

Nevertheless,  he  is  the  most  popular  and  the 
most  feared  man  in  Mexico,  the  man  every- 
where most  talked  about.  Some  people  love 
him  to  the  extent  that  they  would  die  for  him. 
Others  hate  him  and  would  like  to  kill  him, 


70  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

as  they  remember  the  barbarous  outrages  he 
ordered  in  the  early  days  of  the  triumphant 
revolution,  actuated  by  some  perverse  whim  of 
his  very  original  character. 

He  appeals  to  the  multitude  for  his  some- 
what rustic  frankness,  his  good-natured  wick- 
edness and  his  rather  brutal  gayety.  He  has, 
besides,  the  prestige  of  a  courage  which  no  one 
questions,  and  of  an  aggressiveness,  in  a  pinch, 
like  that  of  a  wild  boar  at  bay.  To  cap  the 
climax,  he  has  lost  an  arm. 

My  readers  must  pardon  me  for  emphasizing 
this  latter  point.  In  Mexico  such  things  are 
more  important  than  elsewhere.  The  people  in 
Mexico,  who  are  ready  to  take  up  guns  and  kill 
each  other  at  a  moment's  notice  and  most  of 
the  time  without  knowing  why,  are  very  senti- 
mental and  easily  moved  to  tears.  Mexicans 
give  up  their  lives  with  the  greatest  indiffer- 
ence and  for  anybody  at  all.  At  the  same  time 
they  will  weep  at  the  slightest  annoyance  oc- 
casioned to  one  of  their  loved  heroes.  The 
Mexican  populace  descends  from  the  Aztecs, 
those  magnificent  gardeners  who  lovingly  culti- 
vated flowers  and,  at  the  same  time,  tore  the 
hearts  out  of  a  thousand  living  prisoners  at 


"CITIZEN"  OBREGON  71 

each  of  their  religious  festivals.  Poetry  and 
blood,  sentimentality  and  death!  It  is  a  pity 
that  Obregon's  lost  arm  did  not  actually  leave 
its  hiding  place  to  seize  the  gold  "aztec"  which 
the  General's  aid  held  out  to  it,  in  the  story! 
It  would  have  been  worshiped  by  the  people 
with  national  honors. 

Value  of  an  Amputated  Leg 

There  are  precedents  for  this.  General 
Santa  Ana  was  an  Obregon  in  his  day.  Though 
the  latter  has  never  been  President  yet,  the 
former  reached  the  Presidency  several  times 
through  uprisings  or  manipulated  elections. 
The  Mexican  people  hated  Santa  Ana  after  his 
unsuccessful  campaign  against  the  secession- 
ists, who  had  established  a  republic  in  Texas. 
The  Texans  defeated  his  army  and  made  him 
prisoner.  However,  at  that  moment,  it  oc- 
curred to  the  French  Government  of  Louis 
Philippe  to  send  a  military  expedition  into 
Mexico  to  enforce  some  diplomatic  demands, 
and  French  soldiers  disembarked  in  Vera  Cruz. 
Santa  Ana  rushed  to  oppose  them,  and  the  last 
shot  the  invaders  fired  hit  him  in  the  leg,  and 
the  surgeons  had  to  amputate  it. 


72  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Never  did  a  popularity  rise  to  such  pure  and 
exalted  heights.  Santa  Ana's  leg,  properly 
pickled,  was  taken  from  Vera  Cruz  to  Mexico 
City  with  a  great  guard  of  honor.  The  Gov- 
ernment bestowed  on  the  amputated  limb  the 
honors  of  a  Captain  General  killed  in  battle, 
and  in  the  midst  of  triumphal  pageantry,  the 
booming  of  cannon  and  the  music  of  bands,  it 
was  buried  in  the  center  of  the  city  under  a 
great  monument. 

However,  reversals  of  opinion  and  sudden 
waves  of  anger  must  be  looked  for  in  senti- 
mental peoples.  Years  later  Santa  Ana  went 
to  war  with  the  United  States  over  the  Texas 
affair.  The  campaign  went  against  him  and 
the  Americans  took  Mexico  City.  The  people 
needed  to  vent  its  wrath  on  somebody,  and 
since  it  could  not  get  its  hands  on  Santa  Ana, 
it  tore  down  the  monument  to  his  heroic  leg, 
paraded  the  unfortunate  bone  through  the 
streets  of  the  city  and  finally  threw  it  into  a 
dung  heap. 

His  Threats  Not  "Celestial  Music" 

Obregon  spoke  to  me  about  a  friend  of  his, 
a  newspaper  man,  some  of  whose  articles  were 


" CITIZEN' '  OBREGON  73 

worthy  of  admiration.  "He  is  ill,"  said  the 
General,  "and  practically  dying.  He  has  been 
in  bed  for  several  months.  He  would  be  de- 
lighted if  you  would  pay  him  a  visit." 

The  General  and  I  agreed  to  go  together. 
"I  am  going  to  see  the  silver  mines  at  Pachuca 
to-morrow,"  I  said.  "I  shall  be  away  two 
days." 

"When  you  come  back  I  shall  still  be  here," 
said  the  General.  "All  that  talk  about  the  old 
man's  prosecuting  me  and  putting  me  in  jail 
is  just  celestial  music  (Mexican  for  'hot  air'). 
"We  shall  see  each  other.  I'll  give  you  my  book 
and  we  '11  go  and  see  my  friend. '  * 

When  I  got  back  the  General  had  disap- 
peared. He  had  fled  from  the  city  not  to  re- 
turn till  just  now,  when  he  comes  back  as  a 
conqueror. 

Obregon  did  well  to  get  away  when  he  did. 
The  threats  of  "the  old  man"  were  not  music. 
A  few  hours  later  Carranza  would  have  had 
him  locked  up. 

Carranza  told  me  so  himself  the  last  time  I 
saw  him. 


IV.    THE  REAL  AUTHOR  OP  CARRANZA'S 
DOWNFALL 

THE  third  candidate  for  the  Presidency  of 
the  republic,  Don  Pablo  Gonzalez,  is  a  per- 
sonage who  has  been  thrown  into  the  back- 
ground, apparently,  by  the  kaleidoscopic  per- 
sonality and  overwhelming  popularity  of 
Obregon. 

I  did  not  meet  General  Gonzalez.  He  is  not 
the  type  of  man  that  inspires  you  with  an  irre- 
pressible desire  to  know  him,  as  is  the  case  with 
his  rival  Obregon  and  other  characters  of  the 
Mexican  revolution.  The  personality  of  Don 
Pablo  is  elusive;  it  escapes  the  pursuit  of  the 
observer  however  much  the  latter  may  concen- 
trate his  attention  on  seizing  it.  His  pictures 
exhibit  him  as  a  man  of  dark  complexion,  with 
very  black  and  bushy  brows  and  mustache, 
and  wearing  dark-colored  glasses  that  hide  his 
eyes.  This  last  detail  must  have  given  many 

74 


AUTHOR  OF  CARRANZA'S  DOWNFALL       75 

an  anxious  moment  to  Pancho  Villa,  who  was  so 
worried  by  the  blue  spectacles  of  Don  Venu- 
stiano. 

Not  a  few  people  in  Mexico  consider  Don 
Pablo  an  expert  in  the  great  art  of  dissimula- 
tion, and  they  aver  that  General  Gonzalez  wears 
dark  glasses  to  prevent  the  indiscreet  from 
reading  his  thoughts  in  his  eyes.  I  know  some 
friends  of  Don  Pablo  who  swear  that  he  is  an 
honest  man.  I  know  likewise  a  great  many 
enemies  of  his  who  picture  him  as  a  fraud,  a 
hypocrite  and  a  crook,  adding  that  his  supposed 
kindness  is  mere  sham  and  that  he  has  behind 
him  a  personal  record  full  of  deeds  that  cannot 
bear  close  scrutiny. 

The  military  history  of  this  man  is  amazing. 

"General  Gonzalez  commanded  the  largest 
forces  in  the  revolution  and  he  came  out  of  it 
with  the  unique  honor  of  having  lost  every  bat- 
tle in  which  he  was  engaged."  Thus  was  Gon- 
zalez described  to  me  by  President  Carranza 
and  his  most  intimate  friends  on  one  occasion 
when  I  was  questioning  them  about  the  per- 
sonality of  this  chief. 

And  Don  Venustiano  added  with  what 
seemed  to  me  mock  seriousness:  "But  Don 


76  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Pablo  inspires  so  much  confidence;  he  is  so 
respectable  .  .  ." 

I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  most  con- 
spicuous role  played  by  General  Gonzalez  in 
Mexican  life  has  been  that  of  a  kindly  man  who 
inspires  confidence,  although  his  enemies  pro- 
test that  he  has  never  been  either  kind  or  trust- 
worthy. 

One  of  the  Few  Dons  Left 

The  people  who  speak  of  Obregon  familiarly 
and  call  nearly  all  the  revolutionary  personages 
by  their  last  names,  can  never  mention  General 
Gonzalez  without  prefixing  to  his  name  the  title 
of  Don.  Gonzalez  is  always  Don  Pablo,  just 
as  Carranza  is  Don  Venustiano  and  Diaz  was 
Don  Porfirio.  Aside  from  these  three,  there 
are  no  more  Dons  in  Mexico.  No  one  would 
think  of  calling  General  Obregon  Don  Alvaro; 
he  is  too  democratic. 

When  Obregon  and  Don  Pablo  were  cam- 
paigning independently  under  the  government 
of  Carranza  to  win  the  elections  for  the  Presi- 
dency, public  opinion  swung  around  in  a  rather 
unexpected  manner.  The  conservative  ele- 
ments, the  law-abiding  citizens,  and  the  re- 


AUTHOR  OP  CARRANZA'S  DOWNFALL       77 

ligious  classes  had  to  choose  a  candidate  and 
they  all  instinctively  turned  to  Don  Pablo. 

This  same  Don  Pablo  had  shown  little  re- 
spect for  the  rights  of  property  when  he  was  in 
command  of  troops.  He  had  executed  many 
people  openly,  and  his  enemies  accused  him  of 
having  indirectly  caused  the  death  of  others. 
Moreover,  in  religious  matters  he  had  never 
given  proof  of  definite  and  positive  faith.  But 
all  the  cautious  citizens  who  were  alarmed  by 
the  exuberant  aggressiveness  of  Obregon  took 
pains  to  forget  the  dubious  history  of  Don 
Pablo,  and  they  rallied  around  him,  repeating 
always  the  same  slogan:  "Vote  for  Don  Pablo; 
he  is  safe  and  sane!  Vote  for  the  man  who 
thinks  twice  before  he  speaks !" 

There  are  people  who  instinctively  follow 
the  man  who  does  not  talk,  in  the  belief  that 
silence  is  the  sign  of  all  wisdom ;  just  as  there 
are  others  who  are  captivated  only  by  those 
who  talk  a  great  deal  and  loudly. 

Why  Dan  Pablo  Is  Rich 

According  to  his  enemies,  in  his  youth  Don 
Pablo  Gonzalez  was  a  peon  in  a  factory  at  $20 
a  month.  To-day  he  is  considered  one  of  the 


78  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

richest  men  in  Mexico,  both  in  real  estate  and 
personal  property.  How  did  he  work  the 
miracle  ? 

By  becoming  a  General.  The  reader  must 
neither  laugh  nor  give  this  statement  a  false 
interpretation.  To  be  a  General  in  Mexico 
means  a  great  deal  more,  from  a  pecuniary 
standpoint,  than  it  does  in  any  other  country 
on  earth,  however  rich  the  country  may  be.  It 
must  be  understood,  of  course,  that  by  General 
I  mean  one  in  command  of  troops ;  because  the 
General  not  in  command  of  troops  in  Mexico 
is  a  poor  devil  who  draws  a  miserable  salary 
(when  it  is  not. withheld  under  accusation  of 
disloyalty  to  the  Government)  and  whose  only 
hope  of  advancement  lies  in  a  new  revolution 
that  may  give  him  command  of  a  few  regiments. 

Military  administration,  as  it  is  organized 
in  all  modern  countries,  does  not  exist  in 
Mexico.  The  chief  in  command  of  troops  re- 
ceives directly  from  the  Government  the  money 
needed  for  their  maintenance,  and  he  distrib- 
utes it  as  he  pleases.  The  President  of  the 
Eepublic  takes  good  care  not  to  ask  him  for 
explanations,  nor  is  an  accounting  ever  de- 
manded. Such  an  offensive  curiosity  on  the 


AUTHOR  OF  CARRANZA'S  DOWNFALL       79 

part  of  the  President  would  be  deemed  intoler- 
able by  the  gentleman  in  command  of  the 
troops,  and  he  would  protest  against  it  by  ris- 
ing in  arms  against  the  constituted  authority. 

This  is  the  reason  why  a  General  in  active 
service  does  not  need  to  violate  the  rights  of 
private  property  to  increase  his  income.  All 
he  has  to  do  is  to  keep  a  portion  of  the  money 
sent  him  by  the  Government.  The  worst  of  it 
is  that  the  majority  of  the  Mexican  Generals 
are  two-handed,  as  Obregon  put  it,  and  while 
they  loot  the  public  treasury  with  one  hand, 
to  keep  the  other  busy  they  pick  the  pockets  of 
private  individuals. 

Every  corps  commander  receives  at  the  end 
of  each  month  a  large  sum  of  money,  thou- 
sands of  dollars,  to  pay  for  his  cavalry  fodder. 
The  commander  pockets  the  money  and  imme- 
diately issues  an  order  to  have  the  horses  put 
to  graze  in  private  meadows.  This  business  of 
paying  for  fodder  may  be  the  proper  thing  in 
Europe  where  army  horses  cannot  be  sent  to 
graze  in  private  fields  without  loud  protest. 

Then  there  are  the  men.  The  Mexican  armies 
treble  and  quadruple  when  they  figure  on  paper 
in  the  Treasury  of  the  Ministry  of  War;  and 


80  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

they  dwindle  astonishingly  when  the  pay  is 
actually  handed  out.  The  General  who  certifies 
that  he  has  ten  battalions  under  his  orders  does 
not  have  in  reality  more  than  ten  skeletons  of 
battalions.  Colonels  and  Captains,  in  their 
turn,  do  the  same  when  they  report  about  their 
units.  All  of  them  eat  rations  and  receive 
pay  for  soldiers  who  do  not  exist. 

This  is  by  no  means  an  innovation,  and  can- 
not be  charged  to  the  Government  created  by 
the  revolution.  Such  practice  has  been  the 
rule  in  Mexico  from  the  earliest  days  of  the 
republic  and  it  constitutes  a  national  evil  that 
no  one  has  dared  to  extirpate.  Don  Porfirio 
himself,  despite  his  autocratic  character  and  his 
thirty  years  of  domination,  during  which  there 
seemed  to  be  no  other  will  in  the  country  than 
his  own,  was  forced,  nevertheless,  to  tolerate 
this  abuse,  and  never  dared  to  stop  it,  although 
he  must  undoubtedly  have  known  that  it 
existed. 

Until  I  visited  Mexico  I  could  not  account  for 
the  amazing  rapidity  with  which  President  Diaz 
was  defeated  and  driven  from  power.  He  had 
an  army,  a  real,  modern  army,  similar  to  that 
of  any  powerful  nation.  His  regiments  were 


AUTHOR  OP  CARRANZA'S  DOWNFALL       81 

well  dressed,  well  equipped  and  well  organized. 
His  officers  used  to  go  for  practical  training 
to  the  best  military  schools  of  the  Old  World. 
In  fact,  the  regimental  bands  of  some  of  his 
crack  corps  would  occasionally  go  to  Europe 
and  participate  with  distinction  in  international 
band  tournaments. 

His  Generals  were  professional  men  who  had 
entered  the  army  to  make  it  their  life  work. 
They  were  men  specially  trained  in  the  science 
and  art  of  war,  and  they  knew  a  great  deal 
more  about  military  matters  than  all  the  im- 
provised guerrilleros  whom  the  revolution  later 
honored  with  the  title  of  General  put  together. 

And  yet,  as  soon  as  the  visionary  Madero 
changed  from  preaching  to  action,  and  took  the 
field  with  his  undisciplined  hordes  who  knew  as 
much  about  war  as  he  did — and  he  knew  noth- 
ing— the  entire  Federal  Army  collapsed  in 
short  order.  The  country  had  believed  in  good 
faith  that  the  Mexican  Army  consisted  of  a 
hundred  thousand  men.  The  people  of  Mexico 
City  saw  that  the  garrison  was  not  very  nu- 
merous, but  they  said:  "The  main  body  is  in 
Guadalajara."  The  people  in  Guadalajara 
were  sure  the  bulk  of  the  army  was  in  Puebla, 


82  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

and  the  people  in  Puebla  placed  it  in  Vera 
Cruz.  Thus  one  great  nucleus  after  another 
was  " organized,"  and  everybody  was  sure  a 
gigantic  army  was  on  hand,  though  it  existed 
really  only  in  the  purses  of  the  Generals  com- 
missioned to  manage  the  phantom. 

The  only  person  probably  who  had  precise 
knowledge  of  the  truth  was  old  Diaz ;  but  he  did 
not  consider  a  popular  uprising  as  within  the 
range  of  possibility.  He  never  dreamed  that 
Madero,  whom  he  took  for  a  crazy  young  chap, 
could  ever  put  a  revolution  through.  The  only 
danger  that  occurred  to  him  was  an  attempt 
of  the  Generals  to  revolt,  the  way  he  himself 
had  risen  against  the  President  of  his  time.  It 
was  in  view  of  such  a  contingency  that  he  was 
willing  to  wink  at  everything,  letting  his  Gen- 
erals steal  to  their  hearts '  content. 

Of  the  100,000  men  for  years  and  years  pro- 
vided for  in  the  Mexican  war  budget  Diaz's 
Generals,  recognized  experts  in  strategy,  could 
put  in  the  field  only  14,000,  in  addition  to  the 
detached  corps  kept  as  garrisons  in  the  big 
towns.  That  is  the  sole  explanation  of  the 
rapidity  with  which  Diaz  was  overthrown  and 
of  the  sad  role  played  by  an  army  which  he 


AUTHOR  OP  CARRANZA'S  DOWNFALL       83 

had  showered  with  attentions,  favors  and  good 
pay  for  thirty  years,  the  moment  it  came  in 
contact  with  the  disorganized  mobs  of  the 
revolution. 

The  Verb  "to  Carranza" 

As  I  remarked,  Don  Pablo  Gonzalez  has  been 
in  command  of  larger  contingents  of  men,  in 
times  of  peace  as  well  as  in  times  of  war,  than 
any  other  General  of  the  revolution.  His  ene- 
mies keep  busy,  therefore,  computing  the 
height  of  the  mountains  of  forage  he  has  con- 
sumed and  the  number  of  thousands  of  soldiers 
the  General  has  recruited  in  his  own  imagi- 
nation. 

Such  malicious  speculations,  which  may  be 
quite  erroneous,  though  they  appear  in  part 
justified  by  the  unexplainable  fortune  of  Don 
Pablo,  are  not  surprising.  What  man  of  promi- 
nence in  Mexico  has  not  been  accused  of  graft? 
The  Mexican  people  is  fond  of  broad  generali- 
zations. To  save  itself  the  annoyance  of  mak- 
ing nice  distinctions  it  includes  everybody  in 
one  sweeping  judgment  and  calls  "thief"  after 
all  the  people  ever  connected  with  the  Govern- 
ment. 


84  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

The  venerable  Carranza  has  not  escaped  such 
charges  by  any  means.  They  call  him  the 
"  First  Chief  ...  of  those  who  come  in  the 
night."  Long  ago  the  wags  of  the  capital  be- 
gan to  use  a  new  verb,  "to  carranza,"  the 
exact  hnmor  of  which  may  not  appear  in  Eng- 
lish. "To  carranza,"  in  the  cafes  and  vaude- 
ville theaters  of  Mexico  City,  means  "to  steal," 
and  you  can  hear  people  conjugating  it  on  every 
hand:  "I  carranza,  thou  carranzest,  he  car- 
ranzas — they  all  carranza," 

For  my  own  part,  I  believe  that  such  charges 
are  unfounded.  They  spring  from  the  intense 
passions  of  politics.  Of  all  the  men  around 
him,  Don  Venustiano  is  the  one  who  comes 
from  a  comfortable  social  station.  Not  enor- 
mously rich,  to  be  sure,  he  has  never  known 
what  poverty  is.  Before  he  threw  himself  into 
the  revolution  he  was  a  country  land  owner, 
a  rancher,  with  a  fine  piece  of  property  and 
splendid  herds.  Carranza  has  defects,  but 
among  them  I  should  not  be  inclined  to  place 
an  exaggerated  appetite  for  money.  What  he 
wants  is  power,  control  over  men,  the  privi- 
lege of  being  first  wherever  he  is.  And  when 


AUTHOR  OF  CARRANZA'S  DOWNFALL       85 

such  an  ambition  is  dominant  in  people  it  does 
not  leave  them  time  for  making  money;  but  it 
often  induces  an  otherwise  honest  man  to  toler- 
ate, and  even  to  protect,  the  thieving  of 
others. 

Don  Venustiano  had  to  keep  the  people  about 
him  satisfied.  He  was  anxious  to  gather  round 
him  all  those  who  might  eventually  be  of  use 
to  him  as  men  of  combat.  Himself  a  man  of 
unbending  pride,  he  had  to  swallow  the  inso- 
lence and  foster  the  vices  of  his  retainers.  Un- 
der his  protecting  wing  a  great  deal  of  stealing 
went  on.  There  is  no  question  about  that.  At 
times  the  old  rancher,  remembering  how  angry 
he  used  to  get  when  somebody  stole  one  of  his 
cows,  would  rise  in  his  wrath,  and  talk  of  hav- 
ing the  whole  crowd  of  grafters  shot.  A  mo- 
ment ?s  thought,  however,  was  enough  to  remind 
him  that  in  that  case  he  might  be  left  all  alone. 
He  would  end  by  coming  to  an  understanding 
with  the  culprit  he  had  caught.  If  Carranza 
had  insisted  on  the  strict  enforcement  of  the 
moral  code  he  would  have  fallen  long  before 
he  did.  More  probably,  he  would  never  have 
become  President  at  all. 


86  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Story  of  the  Diplomat's  New  Auto 

People  in  Mexico  City  told  me  a  story  of  his 
first  days  in  office  when  he  had  just  entered 
the  capital  as  conqueror.  A  diplomatic  rep- 
resentative had  come  to  pay  his  respects  to  the 
President,  and  left  a  splendid  automobile  which 
he  had  just  bought,  in  the  court  yard  of  the 
Executive  Mansion.  On  going  out  after  the 
interview  the  diplomat  looked  for  his  beauti- 
fully painted  car  in  vain.  The  soldiers  of  the 
Presidential  Guard  relieved  his  anxiety.  One 
of  the  most  loyal — and  most  feared — Generals 
of  the  President  had  got  into  the  car  and  or- 
dered the  chauffeur  to  drive  off. 

The  diplomat  thought  some  mistake  had  been 
made  and  reported  the  matter  to  Don  Venu- 
stiano.  The  President  immediately  sent  an  Ad- 
jutant to  the  barracks,  where  the  General,  to 
keep  in  closer  contact  with  a  regiment  of 
soldiers  from  the  provinces  who  followed  him 
blindly  everywhere,  was  living.  The  Presiden- 
tial emissary  could  not  have  been  welcomed 
more  warmly. 

"Say,  go  back  and  tell  the  old  man,"  thun- 


AUTHOR  OP  CARRANZA'S  DOWNFALL       87 

dered  the  rustic  Mars,  "that  I  have  been  look- 
ing for  an  automobile  like  that  for  a  long  time, 
and  I  am  going  to  keep  it.  "What  does  he  think 
we  made  the  revolution  for?  What  does  he 
think  we  made  him  President  for?  And  if  he 
doesn't  like  that,  tell  him  to  come  and  get  this 
flivver  himself  .  .  .  and  I  will  lick  the  stuffing 
out  of  him." 

Don  Venustiano  is  a  man  of  some  "pep" 
himself.  When  he  got  that  message  he  flew  into 
a  rage  and  started  toward  the  door  as  though 
he  really  meant  to  go  and  get  the  automobile 
in  person.  But  then  he  stopped  and  began  to 
stroke  his  white  flowing  beard.  "After  all,  I 
am  President  of  the  republic  .  .  ."  So  he  or- 
dered another  automobile,  exactly  like  the  one 
the  diplomat  had  lost,  and  had  it  sent  to  the 
legation. 

Don  Pablo  Gonzalez  was  the  man  really  re- 
sponsible for  President  Carranza's  fall.  The 
"old  man"  always  had  the  highest  esteem  for 
the  General  and  gave  him  the  best  commands 
in  the  army.  But  the  perpetual  "General  in 
Active  Service"  wanted  to  become  President; 
and  since  Carranza,  with  his  characteristic 


88  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

stubbornness,  insisted  on  pushing  the  can- 
didacy of  Bonillas,  Don  Pablo  finished  by  be- 
coming the  President's  enemy. 

While  I  was  still  in  Mexico,  and  a  long  time 
after  Obregon  placed  himself  in  open  revolt, 
the  General  was  maintaining  a  doubtful  atti- 
tude toward  what  was  going  on.  No  one 
thought  it  possible  that  Don  Pablo  would  ever 
start  an  uprising  himself.  But  it  was  just  as 
far  from  everybody's  thought  that  he  would 
ever  favor  a  rebellion  started  by  some  one  else. 

Don  Pablo  is  not  the  kind  of  man  to  strike 
the  first  blow.  Respectable,  prudent  people 
never  do  such  things.  They  leave  it  to  the 
Obregons.  But  the  General  is  the  sort  of  per- 
son quite  willing  to  strike  the  second  blow, 
when  his  enemy,  thrown  off  his  balance,  is 
least  expecting  attack  from  a  new  direction. 
Gonzalez  is  a  man  who  looks  before  he  leaps 
— but  he  leaps  at  the  right  moment. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  intervention  of  this 
respectable  and  prudent  chieftain  on  the  side 
of  the  rebellion  Carranza  would  be  still,  at  the 
present  moment,  in  his  mansion  in  Mexico  City, 
giving  orders  to  faithful  Generals  to  combat 
Obregon  and  Obregon  ?s  partisans. 


AUTHOR  OF  CARRANZA'S  DOWNFALL       89 

How  Carranza's  Plans  Went  Awry 

The  Mstory  of  the  recent  overturn,  which  has 
not  yet  come  to  a  close,  may  be  summarized 
briefly  as  follows:  Carranza  tried  to  impose 
his  candidate  Bonillas  on  Mexico  as  a  whole, 
planning  then  to  overwhelm  Sonora,  where  the 
center  of  the  Obregonist  movement  was  located. 
In  Sonora  an  active  campaign  against  the 
President  was  on  foot,  but  before  all  the  prepa- 
rations were  complete  Carranza  started  to  nag 
the  rebellious  State  and  trample  on  its  au- 
tonomous rights.  His  purpose  was  to  provoke 
a  premature  explosion  of  the  revolutionary 
magazine. 

Sonora  finally  rose  in  revolt,  and  Carranza 
in  his  turn  caught  Obregon  off  guard,  and  was 
thinking  of  putting  the  General  in  a  safe  place, 
at  a  time  when,  as  he  thought,  the  Presidential 
orders  would  still  be  respected.  However, 
Obregon  got  away,  and  his  partisans  in  the 
army  began  to  mutiny,  but  obviously  without 
collusion  with  one  another  and  with  an  indis- 
putable lack  of  unity.  It  was  a  spontaneous 
uprising,  every  one  acting  on  his  own  initiative^ 
as  happens  in  a  powerful  party,  which,  at  a 


90  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

surprise  attack  from  the  enemy,  feels  itself  sud- 
denly in  danger  of  checkmate  and  has  to  move 
before  its  plans  are  all  laid. 

Meanwhile,  Carranza  was  getting  a  large 
body  of  troops  together  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  capital.  He  sent  his  son-in-law,  Candido 
Aguilar,  to  raise  additional  contingents  in  Vera 
Cruz  and  create  a  place  of  refuge  for  himself, 
in  case  of  need,  in  that  stronghold.  Carranza 
did  the  same  thing  some  years  ago,  when  he 
was  expelled  from  Mexico  City  by  Villa  and 
Zapata. 

I  cannot  affirm  that  Carranza  would  have 
been  triumphant  in  the  end.  It  is  almost  cer- 
tain that  Obregon  would  have  won  eventually, 
since  the  present  revolution  has  been  of  a  pure- 
ly military  character,  and  the  majority  of  the 
army  officers  are  strongly  attached  to  their 
former  Minister  of  War. 

But  the  campaign  started  badly  for  Obregon. 
The  first  encounters  between  the  insurrection- 
ists and  the  Government  troops  were  indecisive. 
The  struggle  between  Carranza  and  Obregon 
promised  to  become  something  more  than  a 
mutiny.  It  was  beginning  to  look  like  a  long 
war  that  might  last  months  and  even  years. 


AUTHOR  OF  CARRANZA 'S  DOWNFALL      91 

At  this  moment  another  person  came  on  the 
scene,  much  as  on  the  stage,  a  character  who 
has  been  forgotten  in  the  first  act,  suddenly 
appears  in  the  last  to  say  the  deciding  word  in 
the  drama.  It  was  the  respectable,  the  prudent 
Don  Pablo  Gonzalez.  The  blow  that  this  kindly 
gentleman  struck  Carranza  between  the  eyes 
had  real  punch  behind  it. 

Of  all  the  thousands  of  soldiers  that  the 
President  was  collecting  around  the  capital,  the 
large  units  actually  organized  happened  to  have 
been  all  under  the  command  of  Don  Pablo. 
What  troops  in  the  Mexican  Army,  for  that 
matter,  have  not  been  commanded  by  this  gen- 
tleman in  the  course  of  his  long  and  remunera- 
tive military  experience? 

Mutiny  at  the  Bedside 

General  Gonzalez  slipped  out  of  the  city  one 
night  when  Carranza  had  Obregon  only  on  his 
mind  and  caused  the  larger  part  of  his  forces 
to  mutiny.  One  might  think  that  the  crime  of 
mutiny  would  necessarily  be  the  same  under 
one  chief  as  under  another.  And  yet  such  is 
not  the  case.  The  seriousness  of  the  crime  de- 
pends upon  the  name  of  the  leader.  Mutiny 


92  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

under  Obregon  meant  certain  execution  for  the 
soldier  should  he  chance  to  fall  into  Carranza's 
hands.  Mutiny  under  Don  Pablo  was  some- 
thing much  less  serious.  It  had  an  air  of  good 
form  about  it.  It  smacked  of  social  life.  It 
was  a  sort  of  parlor  frolic.  So  the  battalions 
which  Carranza  had  mobilized  raised  no  objec- 
tion to  following  Don  Pablo.  * '  That  man  knows 
what  he  is  about.  He  knows  which  way  the 
wind  is  blowing!  We  can't  go  wrong  if  we  go 
with  him!" 

Sonora  was  a  long  way  from  Mexico  City, 
and  the  States  which  Obregon  had  to  traverse' 
were  not  much  nearer.  A  lot  of  ground  would 
have  to  be  covered  and  many  skirmishes  would 
have  to  be  fought.  It  would  be  a  long  time 
before  the  insurrection  reached  the  capital. 

But  the  respectable  and  prudent  Don  Pablo, 
rising  in  mutiny  almost  at  the  foot  of  Car- 
ranza ?s  bed,  made  an  unexpected  and  dramatic 
move,  which  threw  Government  expectations 
into  confusion  within  a  few  hours. 

When  Don  Venustiano  tried  to  retire  to  Vera 
Cruz  it  was  already  too  late.  Don  Pablo  had 
blocked  the  road.  Puebla,  moreover,  is  the  key 
to  the  Mexico  City- Vera  Cruz  line,  and  Puebla 


AUTHOR  OF  CARRANZA'S  DOWNFALL       93 

happens  to  be  the  only  city  where  Gonzalez 
really  has  a  following.  Puebla  by  tradition  is 
a  reactionary,  religiously  minded  city.  It  sym- 
pathizes with  Don  Pablo  for  lack  of  a  man  more 
to  its  taste.  Around  the  churches  in  Puebla 
I  saw  a  number  of  election  posters  with  the 
words,  "If  you  want  religion  to  be  respected, 
if  you  want  peace,  vote  for  Don  Pablo  Gon- 
zalez. ' ' 

Thanks  to  the  kindly  enterprise  of  this  ap- 
parently reliable  man,  Carranza,  who  thought 
himself  still  powerful,  had  to  flee  on  a  moment's 
notice,  and,  as  a  result,  is  now  a  wanderer  in 
the  mountains. 

His  Removal  of  Zapata 

Such  coups  are  not  without  precedent  in  the 
life  of  Gonzalez.  Six  months  or  more  ago  he 
decided  to  have  done  with  the  rebel  Zapata,  and 
he  made  good  in  his  design.  Gonzalez  has  never 
won  a  battle ;  but  when  it  comes  to  removing  a 
nuisance  from  his  path,  a  man  whom  he  is  tired 
of,  and  when  it  comes  to  doing  so  cleanly,  thor- 
oughly and  quickly,  Don  Pablo  has  no  rivals. 

Even  the  warmest  friends  of  the  Government, 
and  people  who  lost  no  love  whatever  on 


94  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Zapata,  were  obliged  to  protest  at  the  cowardly 
manner  in  which  Don  Pablo  disposed  of  him. 
As  the  story  goes  he  had  one  of  his  confidential 
agents,  a  guerrillero,  desert  to  Zapata  with 
several  men.  Zapata  was  suspicious  of  the  new: 
arrivals  and  asked  their  leader  to  do  something 
spectacular  against  the  Government  troops. 
Don  Pablo,  accordingly,  arranged  for  one  of  his 
detachments  to  be  surprised  by  the  bandits  of 
his  agent,  who,  to  convince  Zapata  of  his  good 
faith,  had  all  the  prisoners  taken  shot.  Zapata, 
in  fact,  fell  into  the  trap,  and  soon  after  he  was 
led  into  an  ambuscade  and  shot  down  in  cold 
blood. 

Thus  the  heroic  Don  Pablo  was  able  to  add 
to  the  list  of  his  achievements  the  death  of 
Zapata,  which  many  other  Generals  had  tried  to 
accomplish  in  vain. 

Such  a  kindly  man!  And  so  respectable!  A 
man  you  can  rely  on!  Now,  after  the  fall  of 
Don  Venustiano,  he  and  Obregon  are  march- 
ing side  by  side — for  the  moment.  But  Obre- 
gon is  a  literary  man,  you  will  remember.  He 
is  fond  of  phrases.  I  can  imagine  him  saying 
of  his  new  comrade  in  arms:  "His  kindness 
fills  me  with  terror. ' ' 


AUTHOR  OF  CARRANZA'S  DOWNFALL      95 

A  Militant  Pacifist 

One  of  the  most  amusing  spectacles  during 
the  months  preceding  the  present  revolution 
was  the  mania  of  all  the  militarists  in  Mexico 
for  "civilism"  or  "  civilianism. ' ' 

Bonillas  was  the  candidate  of  "civilism," 
though  his  leading  supporters  before  the  public, 
Candido  Aguilar  and  Montes,  were  Generals. 

The  other  candidates,  Obregon  and  Gonzalez, 
insisted,  however,  that  they  were  just  as  much 
civilians  as  the  pacific  Bonillas. 

"There  are  no  militarists,  there  is  no  mili- 
tarism, in  this  country  of  ours,"  Obregon 
would  say  in  his  Ciceronian  manner.  "The 
professional  soldier  died  with  the  fall  of  Don 
Porfirio.  We  are  men  of  the  people,  simple 
citizens,  who  took  up  arms  to  defend  the  cause 
of  the  revolution.  Now  with  the  triumph  of 
that  revolution,  we  lay  down  our  arms  and  be- 
come men  like  other  men. ' ' 

And  Don  Pablo,  who  thinks  there  is  wisdom 
in  few  words,  said  simply: 

"Amen." 

Not  only  that.  The  fiery  Obregon,  ex-Minis- 
ter  of  War  that  he  was,  asked  the  Government 


96  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

to  give  him  an  honorable  discharge  from  the 
army,  and  he  pretended  to  get  angry  when  any 
one  addressed  him  as  "General."  He  insisted 
on  being  nothing  but  "Citizen  Obregon,  gar- 
banzo  King  of  Sonora." 

But  Don  Pablo  did  not  say  "amen"  to  this. 
Don  Pablo  went  on  being  a  General,  although 
he  was  sure  his  army  would  never  be  large 
enough  to  suit  his  tastes.  Since  it  would  have 
been  hardly  appropriate  to  call  himself  "Citi- 
zen Gonzalez,  proprietor  and  gentleman,"  he 
contented  himself  with  making  his  General's 
uniform  look  as  pacifistic  as  possible. 

During  the  elections  he  spent  almost  as  much 
money  on  pictures  of  himself  as  the  Govern- 
ment wasted  on  the  face  of  Bonillas.  Every 
bare  wall  in  the  Mexican  towns  carried  a  por- 
trait of  Don  Pablo,  with  his  heavy  eyebrows, 
his  bushy  mustache,  and  those  disturbing  eyes, 
which,  for  the  first  time,  were  not  obscured  by 
the  pair  of  dark  glasses.  Underneath  the  pic- 
ture there  was  a  single  word,  and,  that  the  il- 
literate peasants  might  understand  it  better, 
it  was  written  in  Latin:  "Pax." 

In  one  of  the  principal  theaters  of  Mexico,  a 
musical  revue  was  given,  in  which  Bonillas  was 


AUTHOR  OP  CARRANZA'S  DOWNFALL       97 

made  to  appear  as  the  shepherdess  "Flor  de 
Te,"  and  Obregon  made  a  speech  about  his  gar- 
bcmzos  and  his  eagerness  to  become  President 
"even  if  he  had  to  use  the  Big  Stick  to  get 
there."  But  Don  Pablo  came  on  in  the  last  act, 
and  in  the  most  comic  fashion.  He  wore  a  bat- 
tle uniform.  He  had  a  scowl  on  his  face.  Black 
eye-glasses  and  an  enormous  mustache  added 
to  the  ferocity  of  his  appearance.  Dragging 
an  enormous  cannon  behind  him,  he  advanced 
toward  the  footlights,  and  there,  in  a  voice 
which  was  more  like  the  roar  of  a  hungry  lion 
ready  to  eat  the  audience,  he  shouted:  "I  am 
a  pacifist." 

"Civilism,"  "peace,"  all  mere  hypocrisy! 
"Citizen"  Obregon  has  remained  a  General, 
and  General  Gonzalez,  the  man  of  peace,  has 
played  another  of  the  treacherous  tricks  in 
which  he  is  a  specialist.  The  moment  Carranza, 
their  former  chief  and  master,  decided  to  give 
the  Presidency  to  some  one  else,  both  of  these 
men  became  militarists  again,  coming  to  a  mo- 
mentary agreement,  but  without  prejudice  to 
their  privilege  of  fighting  each  other  to-mor- 
row. Mexico  had  to  have  one  more  revolution ! 
There  have  been  so  few  of  them  in  her  history! 


V.    CARRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY 

OF  all  the  men  who  figured  prominently  in 
Mexico  during  the  last  years  of  the  Car- 
ranza  regime — including  those  who  remained 
faithful  to  the  First  Chief  and  those  who  re- 
belled against  him — Carranza  came  originally 
from  the  highest  social  station. 

While  the  present  Generals  and  Ministers  of 
the  republic  were  still  humble  laborers,  petty 
merchants,  obscure  lawyers,  or  simply  loafers 
without  visible  means  of  support,  Carranza  had 
already  been,  first,  a  Senator  and,  later,  a  State 
Governor.  A  silent  and  reserved  man  who 
seemed  to  foresee  his  future  greatness,  Don 
Venustiano  moved  for  many  years  in  General 
Diaz's  entourage,  which  eventually  came  to 
have  all  the  characteristics  of  a  real  Court. 

It  is  interesting  to  study  the  portraits  of  Por- 
firio  Diaz  at  the  various  periods  of  his  career. 
In  the  earliest  ones  he  looks  like  an  Indian  with 
sharp-pointed  pyramidal  skull,  coarse  hair  and 
rough  features.  As  the  thirty  years  of  his  rule 


CARRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY          99 

wear  on,  he  shows  gradual  but  constant  im- 
provement. At  the  end  the  Indian  had  turned 
white.  He  always  wore  a  simple  but  elegant 
uniform.  It  was  common  gossip  that  he  em- 
ployed expert  Parisian  specialists  to  paint  his 
lips  and  whiten  his  cheeks. 

The  society  that  surrounded  Don  Porfirio  un- 
derwent a  similar  transformation.  The  official 
functions  given  during  Diaz's  regime  eventu- 
ally became  as  important  and  ostentatious  as 
those  given  in  some  of  the  regal  Courts  of 
Europe.  A  Mexican  aristocracy  grew  up  around 
President  Diaz.  In  diplomatic  circles  the  balls 
held  in  the  Mexican  capital  were  reputed  to  be 
the  best  given  in  America.  I  met  in  Paris  the 
owner  of  a  famous  restaurant  who  had  at  one 
time  been  Don  Porfirio 's  chef. 

"He  is  a  real  sovereign,"  the  old  chef  told 
me.  "I  don't  believe  there  has  been,  since  the 
days  of  Napoleon  III.,  a  ruler  able  to  give  a 
banquet  as  well  as  he  or  with  as  much  pomp  and 
ceremony." 

The  Aristocratic  Carransa 

Carranza's  association  with  this  republican 
Court  had  its  effect  on  him,  as  it  did  on  so  many 


100  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

other  political  personages  whom  Diaz  converted 
into  barons,  as  it  were,  of  his  empire.  Don 
Venustiano  is  a  man  from  the  country,  a  ranch- 
ero,  but  despite  this  origin,  he  has  a  noble  bear- 
ing and  easy  and  distinguished  manners,  which 
show  that  he  is  used  to  moving  in  good  society. 
He  always  dresses  in  black  and  goes  about  from 
the  early  morning  hours  in  a  frock  coat.  Al- 
though this  gives  him  the  appearance  of  a 
magistrate  or  a  professor,  he  looks  more  distin- 
guished than  all  the  young  men  around  him, 
who  affect  the  latest  fashions  with  all  the  ex- 
aggeration and  discord  of  color  characteristic 
of  the  Creole. 

The  figure  of  Don  Venustiano  helps  to  create 
this  good  impression.  He  is  majestically  tall, 
muscular  and  strong  despite  his  years;  and 
above  all,  he  is  white,  pure  white.  His  Spanish 
ancestors  came  from  the  Basque  Provinces  and 
from  the  Basques  he  inherited  the  vigorous 
health  and  the  silent  tenacity  of  that  race.  As 
I  have  already  stated,  there  is  one  somewhat 
grotesque  detail  in  his  face — a  swollen  nose 
with  a  network  of  multi-colored  veins.  But  this 
does  not  show  at  a  distance.  The  majesty  of 
his  white  flowing  beard  and  the  vigor  of  his 


CARRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FA]$I£Y        101 

splendid  stature,  which  gives  him  the  appear^ 
ance  of  an  old  warrior,  seem  ito  hide  the  "defect. 
He  reminds  you  of  the  conquerors  who,  three 
centuries  ago,  after  the  conquest  of  Mexico, 
laid  aside  their  armor  to  devote  themselves  to 
the  development  of  the  mines  and  the  tilling  of 
the  soil. 

When  the  revolution  made  this  frock-coated 
man  take  the  field  and  assume  the  command  of 
troops,  he  turned  out  to  be  a  first-class  strate- 
gist, from  the  standpoint  of  Mexican  conditions. 
He  always  refused  to  be  a  General,  but  the  boys 
whom  he  elevated  to  that  rank  never  failed  to 
ask  for  his  advice  or  to  follow  his  suggestions. 

I  have  heard  many  of  them  tell  of  the  mili- 
tary talent  of  the  man  whom  they  called  the 
First  Chief.  In  the  middle  of  the  night,  when 
they  were  fast  asleep,  he  would  order  them, 
swearing  and  protesting,  to  break  camp  and 
take  up  another  position.  He  had  suspected  a 
move  from  the  enemy  and,  sure  enough,  the 
enemy  would  come;  but  instead  of  surprising 
Carranza,  it  would  be  surprised  by  the  First 
Chief.  Like  all  men  born  in  the  country  who 
have  made  long  journeys  on  horseback  driving 
herds  of  cattle,  he  can  read  the  stars  and  pre- 


102  SXZCO  IN  REVOLUTION 


diet  file  weather.    He  knows  every  irregularity 
in  the  ground  of  the  whole  territory. 

A  Fighter  Who  Won't  Quit 

As  I  write  these  lines  Carranza  is  giving 
proof  of  his  qualities  as  a  mountain  fighter. 
Betrayed  by  almost  all  his  old  friends,  sur- 
rounded by  enemy  forces,  his  retreat  to  Vera 
Cruz  completely  cut  off,  and  the  last  remnants 
of  his  loyal  troops  dispersed,  any  other  man 
would  have  surrendered  resignedly  to  his  fate. 
But  the  principal  virtue  of  Carranza  is  his 
tenacity;  a  tenacity  that  conquers  time  and 
space  and  mocks  fate.  It  is  more  than  prob- 
able that  his  enemies,  infinitely  more  numerous 
than  his  escort,  will  eventually  capture  him. 

At  any  rate,  whether  Carranza  is  captured 
or  succeeds  in  breaking  through  the  ring  which 
his  enemies  have  thrown  around  him,  we  have 
to  admit  that  he  has  defended  himself  against 
ill-luck  in  a  heroic  manner.  This  man  of  64, 
his  followers  reduced  to  a  mere  handful,  can 
ride  whole  days  without  yielding  to  the  ex- 
haustion of  age.  He  will  fight  at  odds  of  a 
hundred  to  one.  If  his  horse  is  killed  under 
him,  he  immediately  mounts  another,  calmly 


CARRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY        103 

facing  a  rain  of  bullets  fired  by  the  very  men 
who  swore  loyalty  to  him.  The  days  are  pass- 
ing, and  his  enemies  have  not  yet  succeeded  in 
capturing  him. 

However  great  his  mistakes  may  have  been, 
we  must  concede  that  Carranza  is  a  man  of  ex- 
traordinary energy  and  determination. 

Carranza 's  Court 

What  we  might  call  Carranza's  Court,  his  in- 
timate circle,  had  a  rather  informal  and  fa- 
miliar aspect.  It  was  something  like  the  co- 
terie of  a  provincial  Governor  who  has  become 
President,  without  giving  up  his  old  habits  of 
country  life. 

Next  to  General  Barragan,  youthful  and 
debonair,  the  man  whom  Don  Venustiano 
treated  with  greatest  intimacy  was  the  major 
domo  of  his  palaces,  Don  Pancho  Serna.  This 
Don  Pancho,  like  nearly  all  the  men  of  the 
revolutionary  epoch,  was  of  very  humble  origin. 
He  had  a  small  popular  restaurant  in  the  out- 
skirts of  Mexico  City  and,  overnight,  Don 
Venustiano  made  him  Governor  of  the  Presi- 
dential Mansion,  of  the  Palace  of  Chapultepeo, 


104  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

and  of  a  third  residence  located  in  the  fortress 
of  San  Juan  de  Ulna  in  Vera  Cruz. 

The  former  restaurant  keeper,  a  jovial  man 
accustomed  to  flattering  his  patrons,  kept  his 
old  good  humor,  changing  only  his  manner  of 
dress  to  meet  the  demands  of  his  new  dignity. 
Every  morning,  the  minute  he  tumbled  out  of 
bed,  he  put  on  his'  frock  coat.  His  position  did 
not  permit  him  to  dress  in  any  other  way.  The 
only  garment  that  he  varied  with  any  frequency 
was  his  vest,  of  silk  or  velvet,  as  the  case  might 
be,  but  always  in  brilliantly  colored  checks. 
Over  it  he  always  wore  a  rich  gold  chain. 

As  long  as  Senora  Carranza  lived,  Don 
Pancho  Serna's  star  did  not  rise  to  its  full 
glory.  The  first  lady  of  the  land  had  no  use 
for  the  major  domo.  But  when  Don  Venusti- 
ano's  wife  died  eight  months  ago  the  major 
domo  became  the  absolute  master  of  the  Presi- 
dential Palaces  and  of  the  President's  affection. 

The  Master  of  the  Banquet  Table 

The  former  restaurateur  always  sat  at  the 
Presidential  table  no  matter  how  formal  the 
banquet  might  be,  and  we  must  confess  that  he 
did  not  look  out  of  place  among  the  guests; 


CARRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY        105 

because  he  confined  himself  to  smiling  discreet- 
ly and  nodding  his  approval  to  everything  that 
was  said.  After  the  dinner,  prompted  by  pro- 
fessional instinct,  as  if  he  were  still  in  charge 
of  his  old  restaurant,  he  would  always  try  to 
find  out  if  the  guests  were  satisfied  with  the 
service.  I  remember  that  on  one  occasion  at 
the  end  of  a  luncheon  I  attended  with  President 
Carranza  in  the  Palace  of  Chapultepec,  Don 
Pancho  led  me  aside  to  ask  me  what  I  thought 
of  the  luncheon.  His  was  the  anxiety  of  an  ar- 
tist who  fears  for  the  success  of  his  work  with 
a  critic  come  from  foreign  parts. 

"It  was  splendid,  Don  Pancho, "  I  replied. 
"The  best  restaurants  on  the  Parisian  boule- 
vards cannot  put  up  a  better  meal." 

You  should  have  seen  the  seraphic  smile  of 
Don  Pancho.  At  that  moment  I  must  have 
seemed  to  him  the  most  agreeable  man  on  earth. 

After  that  he  showed  me  the  rooms  of  the 
Chapultepec  palace,  furnished  during  Emperor 
Maximilian's  reign.  As  the  monarch's  reign 
was  very  brief,  there  is  nothing  extraordinary 
about  the  furnishings.  All  they  have  is  a  few 
porcelains  and  pieces  of  furniture  given  by 
Napoleon  III.  But  Don  Pancho  has  never  been 


106  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

outside  of  Mexico  and  he  asked  me,  with  a 
doubtful  air,  if  the  palaces  of  Europe  had  rooms 
as  beautiful  as  those  of  Chapultepec. 

"I  am  dying  to  go  to  Madrid  to  see  its  mu- 
seums and  to  admire  the  pictures  of  the  famous 
painter  Belasco." 

Don  Pancho  spoke  to  me  frequently  about 
this  unknown  painter  with  great  enthusiasm. 

"Who  the  deuce  can  this  man  Belasco  be?" 
I  asked  myself.  And  it  was  long  afterward  that 
it  dawned  on  me  that  Don  Pancho  was  thinking 
of  Velazquez. 

There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  Don 
Venustiano's  major  domo  is  a  man  of  exquisite 
taste.  Everybody  in  Mexico  City  talked  to  me 
about  the  residence  he  is  building  for  himself 
in  the  most  handsome  park  in  the  capital.  It 
is  a  house  in  colonial  style  of  very  considerable 
proportions.  Such  are  the  mysteries  of  Mex- 
ico !  Six  years  ago  this  man  was  nothing  but 
the  keeper  of  a  popular  restaurant  on  the  out- 
skirts of  the  city.  Now  he  owns  an  artistic 
mansion  in  a  location  corresponding  to  Cen- 
tral Park  in  New  York.  His  enemies  explain 
the  transformation  by  the  fact  that  the  Presi* 
dent  had  given  him  a  monopoly  of  all  the  meals 


CARRANZA 'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY        107 

served  in  the  dining  cars  on  the  Mexican  rail- 
ways. The  privilege,  certainly,  was  not  out  of 
keeping  with  Don  Pancho's  previous  occupa- 
tion. However,  the  story  was  not  true. 

A  "Carranza  Doctrine"  (Subsidized) 

Carranza,  people  assert,  disposed  of  this  din- 
ing-car business,  in  order  to  reward  the  literary 
labors  of  a  young  lady  (a  former  stenographer 
or  telegraph  clerk,  I  don't  remember  which) 
who  is  Kis  favorite  author.  The  girl  placed  her- 
self under  his  orders  early  in  the  revolution 
and  went  with  him  everywhere. 

This  young  "lady  of  letters'9  invented,  and 
expounded  in  several  volumes,  the  so-called 
"Carranza  Doctrine."  Monroe  had  his  doc- 
trine! Why  shouldn't  Carranza  have  one,  too? 
Just  as  Obregon,  aspiring  to  be  an  author  as 
well  as  a  warrior,  wrote  the  story  of  his  cam- 
paigns, Carranza,  to  go  down  in  history  as 
something  more  than  a  President,  entered  the 
field  of  international  law.  However,  he  was 
not  a  writer.  The  young  lady  wielded  the  pen, 
while  the  "old  man"  revised  the  text,  made 
suggestions  and  furnished  ideas. 

The  world  has  paid  no  attention  to  the  *  '  doc- 


108  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

trine,"  but  the  lady  who  expounded  it  has  de- 
rived no  end  of  profit  from  it.  She  receives 
subsidies  to  propagate  the  Carranzist  philoso- 
phy all  over  the  continent;  and  the  privilege, 
moreover,  of  feeding  travelers  on  the  trains  of 
Mexico. 

The  dear  senorita!  I  remember  my  journey 
from  the  frontier  to  the  capital.  All  the  food 
is  canned,  and  canned  goods  seem  to  be  classi- 
fied, in  Mexico,  like  wines.  The  older,  the  bet- 
ter! It  took  me  several  days  to  get  over  my 
ptomaine  and  the  resulting  indigestion.  The 
"Carranza  doctrine"  may  be  all  right,  but  they 
should  not  charge  so  much  for  it. 

Fortunes  in  Revolution  Making 

In  Mexico  nobody  is  surprised  at  great  for- 
tunes rapidly  made.  But  recently  "good  busi- 
ness" has  not  been  so  common,  and  such  suc- 
cesses have  been  confined  exclusively  to  men 
connected  with  the  Government.  "You  ought 
to  have  seen  the  early  days  of  the  revolution ! ' ' 
many  people  said  to  me.  "That  was  the  time 
when  money  was  made!"  People  got  rich  not 
only  at  home  in  Mexico,  but  by  doing  business 
with  Mexico  from  the  United  States.  Many 


CAKRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY        109 

Mexicans  made  millions  without  leaving  New 
York. 

The  moment  of  greatest  prosperity  was  what 
may  be  called  the  second  period  of  the  revolu- 
tion, when  Villa,  Zapata  and  others  were  con- 
trolling the  north  of  the  republic,  while  Car- 
ranza  held  the  south.  There  was  also  a  third 
section  of  the  country,  Yucatan,  where  General 
Alvarado,  Carranza's  agent,  was  exercising  a 
Socialist  dictatorship  on  his  own  account,  and, 
in  the  clutch  of  an  attack  of  graphophobia,  was 
legislating  for  everything  human  and  divine  in 
literally  hundreds  of  decrees  that  he  composed 
each  day. 

At  that  time,  they  say,  there  were  three  agen- 
cies in  New  York,  run  by  influential  Mexicans, 
some  of  whom  were  with  Villa,  others  with 
Carranza  and  others  with  Alvarado.  I  do  not 
believe  that  any  one  of  these  leaders  made  any- 
thing out  of  the  New  York  agencies.  They 
complied,  out  of  political  camaraderie,  with  the 
requests  the  agencies  made  of  them.  The  Mexi- 
can landowner  expelled  from  Mexico  would 
turn,  the  moment  he  ran  out  of  money  on  Broad- 
way, to  the  agency  representing  the  part  of 


110  MEXICO  IN  DEVOLUTION 

the  country  where  his  property  was  located. 
Confiscation  was  the  terrible  weapon  of  the 
Mexican  revolution.  Some  of  these  confisca- 
tions were  made  at  the  expense  of  political  ene- 
mies of  the  triumphant  regime,  but  more  often 
they  fell  upon  private  individuals,  who  had 
taken  no  part  whatever  in  politics  and  whose 
only  crime  was  that  of  owning  something.  It 
was  quite  proper  to  solve  the  social  problem 
by  dividing  the  land  of  the  rich  among  the  poor ! 
And  those  who  held  that  doctrine  began  by 
seizing  the  lands  of  the  wealthy.  Several  years 
have  passed,  however,  and  the  poor  still  own 
very  little  land!  Property  would  lie  around, 
under  a  decree  of  seizure,  in  the  hands  of  Gov- 
ernment employees  or  Generals  who,  country 
people  for  the  most  part,  had  a  good  idea  of 
what  land  was  worth.  The  former  owners 
would  apply  to  one  of  these  agencies  for  the 
recovery  of  their  lands,  and  they  would  put  up 
thousands  of  dollars  to  get  back  their  titles, 
with  permission  to  return  to  the  country. 

How  One  Profiteer  Explained  It 

Then  there  was  brokerage !    All  sorts  of  se- 
cret deals  were  made  between  the  Ministry  of 


CARRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY        111 

Ways  and  Means  in  Mexico  and  business  men 
in  the  United  States,  and  enormous  commis- 
sions were  paid  to  the  intermediaries.  I  know, 
and  everybody  in  Mexico  knows,  a  gentleman 
who  six  years  ago  was  what  they  called  a  pe- 
lado,  a  "down-and-out,"  and  who  to-day  owns 
a  splendid  house  in  New  York.  This  change  in 
luck  was  so  rapid,  so  astonishing,  so  brazen, 
that  Don  Venustiano  himself  got  his  eye  on  the 
man,  who  was  summoned  to  Mexico  to  explain 
his  mysterious  prosperity.  The  "old  man" 
was  in  an  ugly  humor  and  talked  of  jail  and 
the  firing  squad,  if  necessary,  for  the  grafters. 
But  the  accused  gentleman  calmly  justified  him- 
self: 

"Mr.  President,  you  have  never  been  out  of 
Mexico.  You  have  never  been  in  the  United 
States.  That's  why  you  don't  understand  my 
making  a  fortune  in  a  few  years.  I  have  friends 
in  New  York  who  boosted  me,  that's  all.  In 
New  York  you  go  to  the  theater,  and  your  neigh- 
bor in  the  next  seat  is  a  millionaire.  He  takes 
a  fancy  to  you  and  lets  you  in  on  something 
that  makes  you  a  wealthy  man  in  a  few  weeks." 

He  talked  so  well  that  Don  Venustiano  be- 
gan to  think  New  York  must  be  a  city  where 


112  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

everybody  is  rich  and  where  you  cannot  walk 
down  Lower  Broadway  without  stubbing  your 
toe  on  a  million-dollar  roll. 

Another  personage  in  Carranza's  entourage 
was  Aguirre  Berlanga,  Minister  of  the  Interior. 
This  country  lawyer  held  that  confidential  post 
a  long  time  without  any  one's  knowing  why. 
Some  unexplainable  caprice  of  the  Presi- 
dent! .  .  . 

The  noteworthy  thing  in  Berlanga  '&  record 
was  that  he  had  been  the  most  ardent  pro-Ger- 
man in  Mexico.  All  the  men  in  the  Government 
were  pro-Germans,  but  he  surpassed  them  all 
in  this  respect,  and  that  is  the  only  respect  in 
which  he  ever  surpassed  anybody  his  whole  life 
long. 

The  job  of  this  humdrum  and  ignorant  lawyer 
as  Minister  of  the  Interior  was  to  supervise 
subsidies  to  the  newspapers.  It  is  well  known 
that  a  part  of  the  Mexican  press  is  supported 
by  the  Government  and  changes  policy  as  rap- 
idly as  Governments  themselves  change.  Dur- 
ing the  years  of  the  war,  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior  devoted  all  his  money  and  all  his  in- 
fluence to  sustaining  the  pro-German  papers 


CARRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY        113 

and   persecuting  the  few  dailies   which  sym- 
pathized with  the  cause  of  the  Allies. 

On  my  travels  through  Mexico  I  met  many 
people  who  had  sided  with  the  cause  of  world 
freedom  during  the  war.  But  they  were  writ- 
ers and  teachers,  people  who  follow  intellectual 
professions  and  hold  quite  aloof  from  politics. 
The  politicians  and  Generals  were  all  pro-Ger- 
man, with  one  exception — Don  Pablo  Gonzalez. 
That  far-sighted  gentleman  predicted  the  vic- 
tory of  the  Allies  from  the  very  first,  while  his 
less-intelligent  comrades,  who  call  themselves 
revolutionaries  and  Socialists,  were  wrapped  in 
admiration  for  the  glory  and  ability  of  William 
Hohenzollern. 

Carranza's  "Neutrality" 

Carranza,  who  had  never  been  abroad,  who 
knew  the  world  only  second  hand  and  was  under 
the  influence  of  a  daring  intriguer,  the  German 
Minister  resident  in  Mexico,  acted  badly  and 
deceitfully  in  every  matter  relating  to  the  war^ 
He  tried  to  justify  all  he  did  on  the  plea  of  neu- 
trality, a  very  special  kind  of  neutrality,  which 
was  never  anything  more  than  a  disguise  for 
favoritism  toward  Germany.  Many  will  re- 


114  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

member  his  note  to  the  neutral  nations  asking 
them  to  agree  not  to  furnish  food  or  goods  of 
any  kind  to  any  of  the  belligerents.  Since  Ger- 
many had  been  swept  off  the  sea  and  could  get 
nothing  from  distant  nations,  Carranza's  pro- 
posal could  logically  serve  only  to  keep  supplies 
from  the  Allies. 

However,  let  us  not  dwell  on  that.  There  is 
no  occasion  to-day  for  insisting  on  Carranza's 
past  pro-Germanism.  What  many  people  can- 
not explain  is  his  retention,  up  to  the  very  last, 
of  Aguirre  Berlanga  as  Minister  of  the  Interior. 
This  insignificant  lawyer  and  kowtower  to  the 
Germans  is  a  young  chap  who  listens  to  him- 
self when  he  talks ;  and  he  talks  on  every  ques- 
tion under  the  sun,  treating  them  all  with  the 
same  competence.  His  importunateness,  lack 
of  tact,  and  assertive  ignorance,  as  well  as  the 
unfriendliness  that  met  him  everywhere,  be- 
came long  ago  proverbial  in  Mexico. 

The  Chamber  of  Deputies  was  constituted  in 
great  majority  by  friends  of  Carranza.  Well, 
whenever  the  President  wanted  a  law  passed 
it  was  sufficient  for  Berlanga  to  support  it,  for 
everybody  to  vote  against  it.  When  the  Car- 
ranza majority  was  most  compact  one  speech 


CARRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY        115 

by  that  gentleman  was  enough  to  split  it  into 
factions.  Nevertheless,  when  people  talked  to 
Don  Venustiano  about  his  Minister  of  the  In- 
terior the  "old  man's"  eyes  would  twinkle 
shrewdly,  a  smile  would  flit  over  his  bewhis- 
kered  face,  and  he  would  come  to  Berlanga's 
support. 

Why  He  Stood  by  Berlanga 

It  was  a  case  of  personal  vanity.  Men  of 
strong  will,  men  who  delight  in  power,  like  to 
surround  themselves  with  nonentities  to  use  as 
mirrors  for  the  reflection  of  their  own  delight- 
ful greatness.  "What  a  great  man  am  I  to 
have  made  a  somebody  out  of  that  idiot!" 
Carranza  doubtless  felt  like  the  Eoman  Em- 
peror who  made  his  horse  a  Consul. 

I  owe  one  courtesy  to  Don  Venustiano,  for 
which  I  should  thank  him  here.  He  invited  me 
to  luncheon  with  the  most  prominent  of  his  as- 
sistants and  friends,  and  omitted  his  Minister 
of  the  Interior  from  the  list  of  guests.  It  oc- 
curred to  him,  perhaps,  that  I  should  not  care 
to  sit  at  table  with  the  representative  of  Ger- 
man interests  in  Mexico  who  supervised  all  the 
intrigues  there  against  the  European  Allies  and 


116  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

the  United  States  of  America,  Or  perhaps,  to 
avoid  seeing  me  laugh  at  a  man  in  his  Ministry, 
he  preferred  to  take  no  chances  on  any  inepti- 
tudes Berlanga  might  get  off  in  his  pedantic 
tone  during  the  meal. 

I  have  been  constantly  wondering  what  can 
have  happened  to  Aguirre  Berlanga  during 
these  last  days.  Did  he  slip  off  to  a  safe  place, 
or  did  some  noble  impulse  prompt  him  to  stand 
by  his  patron  in  time  of  misfortune?  Then, 
again,  I  cannot  help  laughing  when  I  think  of 
a  queer  kind  of  popularity  that  Berlanga  en- 
joyed. When  a  Mexican  tried  to  estimate  the 
stupidity  of  anybody,  he  would  invariably  say : 
"He  is  a  bigger  fool  than  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior."  Enough  said! 

All  Honest  in  Politics — to  Politicians 

Beyond  any  doubt,  the  people  of  Mexico  are 
tired  of  so  many  revolutions.  After  each  revo- 
lution, everybody  thinks:  "This  is  going  to 
be  the  very  last.  We  shall  never  have  such 
trouble  again."  But  since,  within  a  few 
months,  or  a  few  years,  another  upset  invari- 
ably appears,  people  have  finally  come  to  take 
revolution  as  a  matter  of  course,  much  as  an 


CARRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY        117 

invalid  gets  accustomed  to  his  pain.  They  even 
reach  the  point  where  they  can  joke  over  their 
troubles,  meeting  each  new  political  overturn 
with  good  humor  and  getting  all  the  fun  out  of 
it  they  can. 

All  the  funny  stories  about  Mexico  and  the 
republic's  present  leaders  were  invented  by 
Mexicans  themselves,  and  not  Mexicans  living 
abroad  for  long  periods  of  time,  but  those  who 
have  stayed  at  home  and  actually  seen  men  and 
events  close  at  hand. 

I  noticed  one  curious  thing  in  Mexico.  "When 
one  Mexican  politician  is  talking  about  another 
of  the  opposite  camp,  he  never  calls  his  oppon- 
ent's honesty  into  question.  In  the  heat  of  po- 
litical passion,  he  may  doubt  his  enemy's  per- 
sonal qualifications  and  his  reliability.  He  will 
call  him  a  sneak  and  a  liar.  He  will  question 
the  fidelity  of  the  man's  wife  and  the  virtue 
of  the  man's  mother.  "He  is  a  thoroughgoing 
scoundrel,"  he  concludes,  "but  I  must  say  that 
in  money  matters  he  is  absolutely  straight,  and, 
in  spite  of  what  people  say,  he  is  really  a  poor 
man."  And  the  man  he  is  talking  about  says 
the  same  things  about  him. 

There   seems   to   be   a   tacit  understanding 


118  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

among  them  all  to  tell  the  truth  about  each 
other  on  every  point  except  money.  They  are 
all  anxious  to  make  the  point  that  there  is  not 
a  single  thief  in  Mexican  political  life.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  lower  class,  the  common  people, 
which  has  been  putting  up  with  revolutions  for 
years  and  years,  and  is  always  seeing  its  coun- 
try go  down  hill  instead  of  improving,  smiles 
a  smile  of  bitter  skepticism  when  the  words 
"unselfishness"  and  " patriotism "  are  men- 
tioned. 

Only  the  Masses  Resentful 

Two  hundred  thousand  Mexicans  get  their 
living  by  making  civil  war  and  taking  part  in 
revolutions,  fattening  on  the  ruins  of  Govern- 
ments that  fall  and  on  the  inaugural  feasts  of 
Governments  that  come  into  being.  Such  peo- 
ple speak  in  all  seriousness  when  they  say  that 
" Liberty  must  be  preserved"  or  allege  that 
"the  Constitution  is  being  violated."  Poor 
Constitution  is  the  most  frequently  ravished 
virgin  in  Mexico!  But  the  rest  of  the  popula- 
tion, which  includes  millions  of  people,  either 
says  nothing,  with  that  significant  silence  of  the 
Indian,  or  else  it  says:  "Liberty!  Constitu- 


CAERANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY        119 

tion!  Mere  pretexts  for  a  new  grab.  Just 
ways  of  making  a  living!  All  alike!  All 
thieves !"  And  in  this  sweeping  generalization 
it  includes  everybody  in  politics,  pardoning  no 
one,  not  even  those  who  have  come  to  a  tragic 
death. 

The  Mexican  people,  which  has  a  certain  lit- 
erary instinct  and  much  imagination,  invents 
all  kinds  of  ingenious  and  interesting  stories  to 
wreak  vengeance  on  the  powers  that  be.  Its 
biting  satire  respects  not  even  death.  The  mis- 
erable populace  has  suffered  so  much  and  has 
so  many  accounts  to  settle! 

Tragedy  of  Carranza's  Brother 

The  story  of  what  happened  to  Don  Jesus 
Carranza,  after  his  death,  is  a  cruel  but  inter- 
esting and  witty  tale.  This  brother  of  Don 
Venustiano  came  to  a  tragic  end.  While  Car- 
ranza was  shut  up  in  Vera  Cruz  by  the  troops 
of  Zapata  and  Villa,  he  sent  his  brother  on  an 
expedition  to  the  south  of  Mexico.  The  very 
escort  which  Don  Venustiano  had  given  Don 
Jesus  for  protection  rose  in  mutiny  and  made 
him  prisoner.  Such  jokes  are  nothing  unusual 
in  Mexican  revolutions.  No  one  knows  with 


120  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

certainty  on  whom  he  can  count.  You  never 
know  whether  a  friend  on  embracing  you  will 
not  stab  you  in  the  back. 

Don  Jesus,  with  all  his  staff,  fell  into  the 
hand  of  one  of  the  petty  chieftains  hostile  to 
Don  Venustiano,  and  a  dramatic  episode  oc- 
curred. The  guerrilla  telegraphed  to  the  Presi- 
dent, making  on  him  a  number  of  demands,  of 
a  political  nature,  which  were  equivalent  to  an 
abdication.  He  accompanied  his  demands  with 
a  threat  to  execute  Carranza's  brother  if  they 
were  not  granted.  The  proud  and  stubborn 
Don  Venustiano  made  no  answer;  whereupon 
the  guerrilla  began  to  shoot,  one  by  one,  the 
members  of  the  staff  of  Don  Jesus.  After  a 
second  failure  of  the  President  to  answer,  a 
son  of  Don  Jesus,  and  nephew  to  Don  Venusti- 
ano, was  shot.  A  final  telegram  likewise  failed 
to  move  the  iron  will  of  Carranza,  and  his 
brother  was  also  executed,  some  hours  before 
the  Carranzista  troops,  sent  to  free  him,  ar- 
rived. 

This  blood-curdling  episode  aroused  sym- 
pathy only  among  the  partisans  of  the  Presi- 
dent. A  few  small  villages  took  the  name  of 
Don  Jesus,  but  they  have  probably  lost  it  again 


CARRANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY       121 

by  this  time.  But  while  the  friends  of  the  Gov- 
ernment were  mourning  the  martyr,  the  peo- 
ple, that  great  anonymous  novelist,  was  ham- 
mering out  his  story. 

Tale  the  People  Invented  About  It 

It  must  be  recalled  that,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  revolution,  while  Don  Venustiano  was  mak- 
ing war  on  the  partisans  of  Huerta  in  a  num- 
ber of  States,  Don  Jesus  had  been  in  command 
of  a  division  on  the  frontier  of  the  United 
States.  I  was,  of  course,  not  a  witness  of  his 
campaign,  but  people  in  Mexico  say  that  this 
Carranza  was  a  real  Napoleon  when  it  came  to 
driving  owners  away  from  ranches  and  carry- 
ing off  cattle. 

No  animal  wearing  horns  would  ever  escape 
him.  They  all  succumbed  to  his  irresistible 
spirit  on  attack.  In  a  very  few  of  such  cam- 
paigns he  swept  the  territories  under  his  con- 
trol absolutely  clean  of  cattle.  Then  he  would 
drive  his  prisoners,  which  numbered  thousands 
and  thousands,  up  across  the  American  frontier, 
and  generously  hand  them  over  to  buyers  in 
the  United  States,  in  exchange  for  seme  little 
slips  of  paper  issued  by  the  banks. 


122  MEXICO  DT  REVOLUTION 

At  this  point,  the  Mexican  story  begins. 
When  Don  Jesus  died  he  went  straight  to  hell. 
Where  else  could  he  go?  ...  At  that  time 
there  was  war,  not  only  in  Mexico  but  in  the 
greater  part  of  Europe  as  well.  You  may  read- 
ily imagine  the  great  number  of  guests  who 
were  being  admitted  to  hell.  What  a  lot  of  in- 
cendiaries of  cities!  And  murderers!  And 
thieves ! 

Satan,  who  knows  everything,  got  wind  of 
Don  Jesus  rs  arrival  and  was  anxious  to  make 
his  acquaintance.  As  the  devil  has  horns  and 
a  cloven  foot,  he  was  interested  in  getting  a 
close-up  view  of  this  invincible  persecutor  of 
horned  and  hoofed  animals. 

' ' Where  is  Jesus  Carranza?"  he  shouted 
from  his  throne. 

Absolute  silence.  The  man  in  question  did 
not  want  to  appear,  he  was  so  alarmed  by  the 
interest  aroused.  As  the  last  consignment  re- 
ceived in  hell  consisted  of  so  many  lost  souls, 
he  tried  to  keep  out  of  sight,  hiding  behind  his 
comrades. 

Several  small  imps,  obeying  orders  from 
their  master,  went  through  the  groups,  paging 
the  missing  person  much  as  bellboys  go  through 


CARKANZA'S  OFFICIAL  FAMILY        123 

the  corridors  of  a  hotel  when  they  have  to  de- 
liver a  message. 

"Mister  Carranza!    Mister  Carranza!" 

Another  long  silence.  And  Satan,  annoyed 
at  this  lack  of  respect,  called  one  of  his  clever- 
est little  devils. 

"Turn  into  a  cow,"  he  ordered  him. 

Immediately  there  was  a  moo,  and  a  fine 
cow,  fiery  in  color,  began  to  run  loose  through 
the  throngs. 

But  there  was  one  there  who  could  run,  faster 
than  the  cow.  A  man  leaped  over  the  crowd 
with  the  speed  of  a  bullet,  panting  with  greed, 
and  grabbed  the  animal's  tail.  Then  he  seized 
the  animal  by  the  horns.  "You  cannot  escape 
me,  you  cannot  escape  me!  You  are  mine!" 

That's  how  Satan  discovered  Don  Jesus  Car- 
ranza. 


VI.     CONDITION  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

WHEN  we  speak  of  Mexico  and  of  the 
absurd  things  which  occur  there,  many 
people  imagine  that  that  country  is  a  half -sav- 
age nation  whose  normal  condition  is  a  state 
of  violent  revolution;  a  nation,  in  short,  that 
has  no  conception  of  the  duties  of  civilized  peo- 
ples. 

Those  who  hold  this  opinion  of  Mexico  are 
wholly  mistaken,  though  their  error  is  not  at 
all  surprising.  All  nations,  however  advanced 
they  may  be,  always  misunderstand  the  real 
character  of  the  neighbors  across  their  fron- 
tiers. It  would  seem  that  nations  feel  in  duty 
bound  to  misunderstand  and  slander  one  an- 
other. It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  Mexico 
should  be  misunderstood.  The  Mexicans, 
themselves,  and  I  include  among  them  the  rul- 
ing classes,  also  lack  a  proper  understanding 
of  foreign  countries. 

It  may  be  stated  that  Mexico  is  as  civilized 
as  any  of  the  other  countries  of  Spanish-speak- 

124 


CONDITION  OF  THE  COUNTRY          125 

ing  America;  but  she  has  been  extraordinarily 
unfortunate. 

The  history  of  Mexico  during  the  last  fifty 
years  may  be  summarized  as  follows:  those 
who  tried  to  civilize  her  either  did  not  know 
how  or  else  did  not  care  to  complete  their  work ; 
and  their  successors  not  only  failed  to  complete 
the  work  of  civilization,  but,  blinded  by  po- 
litical fanaticism,  they  destroyed  a  great  deal 
of  what  their  predecessors  had  accomplished. 

I  have  never  been  an  admirer  of  Porfirio 
Diaz.  He  was  simply  a  tyrant.  The  peace  that 
he  maintained  for  thirty  years  was  secured  by 
wholesale  executions,  ordered  without  due 
process  of  law,  and  by  violations  of  the  liber- 
ties of  the  individual.  During  his  thirty  years 
of  rule  he  caused  the  death,  by  secret  and  under- 
handed ways,  of  more  people,  perhaps,  than 
have  fallen  in  all  the  battlesi  of  revolution. 
Moreover,  although  with  his  dictatorial  powers 
he  could  have  given  a  great  impetus  to  public 
education  in  his  illiterate  country,  he  preferred 
to  keep  the  people  ignorant.  Politically  and 
spiritually,  the  long  reign  of  Porfirio  Diaz  was 
a  misfortune  for  Mexico;  but  we  must  admit, 
in  all  justice,  that  so  far  as  material  progress 


126  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

goes,  Mexico  never  had  another  ruler  that  could 
compare  with  this  man. 

What  Diaz  Did  for  Mexico 

Every  conspicuously  modern  thing  that  Mex- 
ico has  to-day  she  owes  to  General  Diaz.  The 
great  buildings  in  the  cities,  public  sanitation, 
the  railways,  harbor  improvements,  school 
buildings  for  the  better  classes — all  these  date 
from  the  time  of  Don  Porfirio.  One  is  amazed 
to  see  the  amount  of  building  done  or  half -com- 
pleted during  the  time  of  this  tyrant.  He  kept 
the  spirit  of  his  people  in  fetters,  but  he  suc- 
ceeded in  giving  the  country  the  outward  ap- 
pearance of  a  nation. 

In  one  particular  he  succeeded  admirably 
well.  Mexico  is  a  country  that  has  inherited 
from  the  Indian  a  certain  tendency  to  hate  all 
foreigners,  to  shun  them  with  an  irresistible 
aversion  or  to  harass  them  whenever  possible. 
But  Diaz  realized  that  his  country  would  be  all 
the  greater  and  more  enlightened  in  proportion 
as  it  kept  in  contact  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 

His  glorious  predecessor,  Benito  Juarez,  for 
whom  every  man  of  democratic  ideals  must  feel 
a  deep  interest  and  sympathy,  had,  neverthe- 


CONDITION  OP  THE  COUNTRY         127 

less,  a  great  defect.  He  was  an  Indian,  and 
through  an  irresistible  racial  instinct  lie  Sis- 
trusted  all  foreigners  and  tried  to  avoid  them. 
As  he  was  patriotic,  and,  after  the  imperial  ad- 
venture of  Maximilian,  had  misgivings  about 
the  possible  effects  of  foreign  influence  on  his 
country,  he  tried  to  keep  his  nation  in  the 
geographical  isolation  in  which  it  had  lived. 
The  coastline  of  Mexico  continued  to  be  a  mere 
coastline  without  ports,  and  the  north  of  the 
republic  continued  a  desert  to  constitute  an  al- 
most impassable  barrier  between  the  United 
States  and  the  vital  center  of  Mexican  life. 

Porfirio  Diaz  reversed  the  policy  of  Benito 
Juarez.  He  opened  the  ports  and  thus  placed 
his  nation  in  more  frequent  communication 
with  Europe;  he  laid  several  railway  lines 
which  brought  Mexico  into  contact  with  the 
United  States.  He  took  pains  to  develop  the 
resources  of  the  country  favoring  the  creation 
of  new  industries,  stimulating  the  development 
of  the  mines  and  aiding  directly  the  discovery 
of  the  oil  wells,  an  industry  which  grew  in  the 
last  years  of  his  rule. 

During  this  period  Mexico  did  not  have  lib- 
erty, but  it  had  peace  and  prosperity. 


128  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

The  "Cientificos" 

A  group  of  intelligent  men  whom  the  public 
sarcastically  nicknamed  los  cientificos,  who 
eventually  adopted  this  title  themselves,  placed 
themselves  at  the  orders  of  the  former  warrior, 
now  become  dictator,  and  cooperated  with  him. 
There  were  Ministers  who  held  portfolios  for 
thirty  years  without  interruption.  The  people 
naturally  found  this  tutelage  too  long — so  long, 
indeed,  that  the  annals  of  absolute  monarchy 
scarcely  show  a  similar  example.  The  revolu- 
tion had  to  come.  When  it  did  come  the  people 
of  the  whole  country,  some  because  they  wanted 
liberty  and  others  because  they  desired  a 
change  after  such  a  long  period  of  inertia,  fol- 
lowed the  revolutionary  path. 

To-day,  after  ten  years,  observers  begin  to 
realize  that  the  revolution  has  been  of  little  use. 
There  was  no  more  liberty  under  Carranza  than 
there  had  been  under  Don  Porfirio,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  peace  and  prosperity  had  en- 
tirely disappeared. 

The  revolutionary  Governments  did  not  do 
anything  new.  What  Mexico  has  to-day  she  al- 
ready had  under  Diaz,  except  that  now  every- 


CONDITION  OP  THE  COUNTRY         129 

thing  is  older,  almost  in  ruins,  like  a  building 
which  gradually  deteriorates  for  lack  of  some 
one  to  take  care  of  it  and  repair  the  damage 
caused  by  time. 

Moreover,  the  country  has  not  gained  any- 
thing in  morality.  When  General  Diaz  was  in 
power  the  people  complained,  as  they  do  now, 
about  the  lack  of  honesty  of  their  rulers,  and 
they  called  the  cientificos  of  those  days  thieves 
just  as  sincerely  as  later  they  accused  the  revo- 
lutionists. 

Perhaps  the  people  were  right.  I  have  not 
seen  at  close  range  the  men  who  ruled  the  coun- 
try under  Diaz.  But  it  seems  that  poor  Mex- 
ico is  cursed  with  an  endless  succession  of 
money-mad  politicians. 

But  if  the  cientificos  were  really  thieves  they 
differed  from  their  successors  in  a  particular 
well  worthy  of  consideration.  The  former  were 
constructive  in  their  thieving,  while  the  latter 
have  been  nothing  but  vandals.  The  cientificos 
did  not  squeeze  their  money  from  private  indi- 
viduals ;  they  enriched  themselves  with  the  com- 
missions received  from  public  works  which  ren- 
dered good  service  to  the  country.  Moreover, 
they  got  rich  slowly.  They  took  thirty  years 


130  MEXICO  IN"  REVOLUTION 

to  make  their  fortunes;  as  they  were  not  in  a 
hurry,  they  collected  their  graft  with  prudence 
and  dignity,  knowing  full  well  that  their  Gov- 
ernment was  long-lived,  and  there  was  no  need 
of  any  unseemly  haste.  But  the  latter-day 
thieves  have  been  rapid-fire  grafters,  robbers 
of  machine-gun  rapidity,  who  knew  they  had 
only  a  few  years  in  which  to  get  rich,  and  so 
had  to  steal  as  fast  as  possible. 

Mexico's  Pitiable  State  To-day 

Mexico  to-day  is  in  a  pitiable  plight.  Of  the 
former  railways  scarcely  more  than  the  tracks 
remain.  The  Government  of  Carranza  took 
over  the  lines  without  compensating  the  own- 
ers. It  operated  them  for  several  years,  kept 
all  the  revenues  and  failed  to  renew  any  part 
of  the  rolling  stock.  The  railway  properties 
consist  to-day  of  a  few  hundred  old  cars  in 
very  poor  condition  and  some  patched-up  and 
asthmatic  locomotives  which  serve  sometimes 
to  carry  passengers  who  are  not  in  a  hurry, 
and  other  times  to  gratify  the  amazing  genius 
the  insurgents  have  for  dynamiting  trains. 
The  sleeping  cars  are  full  of  vermin,  and  their 
lighting  apparatus  is  in  such  a  state  that  it 


CONDITION  OP  THE  COUNTEY          131 

frequently  fails  to  work  and  the  trains  have  to 
be  lighted  with  candles. 

Many  of  the  stations  are  mere  shacks  stand- 
ing near  a  heap  of  black  ruins,  the  ruins  being 
all  that  is  left  of  a  former  station  burnt  a  few 
years  before  by  the  revolutionists.  Further 
on,  one  can  see  dozens  of  wrecked  cars,  mere 
skeletons,  their  iron  frames  blackened  and 
twisted  as  if  they  were  still  suffering  the  tor- 
ture of  the  explosion  that  destroyed  them. 

The  ports  are  losing  their  traffic  more  and 
more  every  day.  In  cities  which  were  prosper- 
ous once,  like  Vera  Cruz,  you  can  see  the  steve- 
dores standing  about  in  the  sun,  their  arms 
folded  across  the  breast,  with  nothing  to  do. 

That  fertile  country,  one  of  the  richest  in  the 
world,  can  produce  three  annual  crops,  and  yet 
it  is  barely  raising  enough  food  to  feed  its 
population.  Instead  of  advancing,  agriculture 
has  declined.  Cattlemen,  tired  of  raising  cattle 
to  feed  the  revolutionists,  have  gone  out  of  busi- 
ness. The  farmers  frequently  find  themselves 
left  in  the  lurch  by  their  peons  who  believe 
that  to  shoulder  a  musket  and  follow  Villa,  Car- 
ranza,  or  Obregon,  as  the  case  may  be,  is  better 
than  to  hoe  the  ground. 


132  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

The  only  export  industries  of  the  country  are 
the  mines,  which  are  little  worked;  the  sizal, 
produced  in  Yucatan,  and  the  Tampico  oil  wells. 
As  these  are  the  only  sources  of  wealth  which 
yield  an  income,  the  Government  taxes  them 
heavily.  The  oil  companies  especially,  the  ma- 
jority of  which  are  owned  by  American  citi- 
zens, had  been  paying  Carranza,  in  one  form 
of  taxation  or  another,  about  40  per  cent,  of 
the  value  of  their  daily  output.  A  General  who 
is  one  of  Obregon's  lieutenants  admits  in  one 
of  his  writings  that  the  taxes  paid  by  the  oil 
companies  are  formidable.  However,  if  the 
oil  companies  failed  to  pay  their  taxes  for  three 
months  the  Government  of  Mexico  could  not 
survive  financially,  because  the  oil  taxes  are 
the  only  reliable  source  of  income  that  it  has. 

A  really  painful  contrast  between  what  Mex- 
ico is  and  what  it  could  become  if  the  country 
had  a  half  decent  Government  strikes  the  most 
casual  observer. 

Peasants  Starving  in  a  Rich  Land 

A  common  sight  in  Mexico  is  the  peasant, 
with  his  large,  umbrella-like  straw  hat  and  red 
poncho,  squatting  on  the  ground  in  an  attitude 


CONTMTION  OP  THE  COUNTRY          133 

of  profound  thought,  although  perhaps  in  real- 
ity he  is  not  thinking  at  all.  Hours  later  you 
go  by  the  same  spot  again  and  find  the  man 
sitting  in  the  same  position  and  still  thinking.; 
He  has  not  moved.  He  has  not  done  anything. 
Perhaps  he  has  eaten  a  corn  tortilla,  which  con- 
stitutes the  principal  article  of  his  diet.  And 
this  poor  wretch,  who  is  suffering  material  hun- 
ger and  moral  anaemia,  sits  upon  one  of  the 
richest  thrones  of  the  earth.  The  soil  beneath 
him  treasures  gold,  silver  and  petroleum,  and 
it  can  produce  90  per  cent,  of  all  the  different 
agricultural  products  known  to  man. 

That  peasant  is  disillusioned ;  he  is  a  fatalist 
resigned  to  his  destiny.  He  has  been  shedding 
his  blood  for  ten  years  in  battle  after  battle, 
always  in  the  name  of  liberty.  And  he  does 
not  see  liberty  anywhere.  The  men  who  gov- 
ern his  native  village  and  province  have  the 
same  vices  as  those  who  ruled  them  in  the  days 
of  General  Diaz.  They  made  this  illiterate  be- 
lieve that  everything  that  Mexico  contained 
was  going  to  be  distributed  among  the  people. 
He  saw  how  the  property  of  the  rich  was  con- 
fiscated; but  he  is  still  waiting  to  see  it  dis- 
tributed among  the  poor.  Those  who  were  rich 


134  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

by  heritage  or  tradition  were  succeeded  by 
newly  made  men  of  wealth,  by  men  whom  he 
had  known  before  as  comrades  in  poverty. 

All  his!  And  the  Mexican,  thinking  about 
these  things,  either  remains  passive  the  live- 
long day  watching  the  trend  of  events,  or  else 
he  joins  those  who  have  risen  in  the  social  scale, 
and  hopes  that  civil  war  may  last  forever,  that 
a  revolution  may  break  out  every  year,  that  no 
party  may  last  too  long  in  power,  and  that  Gov- 
ernments may  succeed  one  another  frequently 
in  order  that  all  may  eventually  get  a  taste  of 
the  pleasures  and  profits  of  being  "in." 

Suppose  the  American  Government  in  "Wash- 
ington should  issue  a  new  series  of  paper 
money  some  day,  declaring  it  legal  tender. 
Every  one  accepts  it.  Then  the  Government, 
should  any  one  question  the  money,  declares 
repeatedly  that  the  debt  represented  by  the 
paper  is  sacred  and  that  it  will  be  scrupulously 
paid  at  the  first  convenient  moment.  Then  sup- 
pose the  same  Government  suddenly  decrees 
that  the  paper  is  worth  nothing;  that  the  State 
does  not  recognize  the  promise  inscribed  on 
the  face  of  its  notes,  and  that  not  a  cent  will  be 
paid  on  any  of  them.  The  financial  organism 


CONDITION  OF  THE  COUNTRY          135 

of    the    country,    of    course,    would    collapse. 

Such  a  thing  would,  indeed,  seem  impossible. 
It  is  hard  to  imagine  it  happening  in  any  coun- 
try on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

Well,  ithappenedin  Mexico — notonce,buttwice. 

The  Carranza  Government  on  two  different 
occasions  issued  paper  money  which  it  forced 
upon  the  Mexican  public  as  legal  tender  and 
later  repudiated,  a  robbery  more  irritating 
than  any  looting  ever  committed  by  party  chief- 
tains in  the  country,  since  it  embraced  the 
whole  nation  in  the  ruin  it  caused. 

Eecently,  a  few  weeks  before  the  revolution 
which  overthrew  it,  the  Government  launched 
a  new  series  of  notes,  but  without  daring  to 
make  it  legal  tender.  Everybody,  in  the  con- 
viction that  it  would  prove  valueless  eventually, 
refused  to  take  it. 

Carranza 's  jack  of  all  financial  trades  was 
Luis  Cabrera,  a  lawyer.  I  need  not  draw  a 
portrait  of  Cabrera,  for  he  has  been  in  the 
United  States  frequently  and  is  well  known 
here.  Cabrera  has  a  good  literary  education 
and  writes  well.  He  was  the  pen  and  style  of 
Don  Venustiano,  and  when  the  President 
wanted  to  stab  some  enemy  to  the  quick  he 


136  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

sent  for  Ms  Minister  of  Finance.  Many  unfor- 
tunate decrees  went  out  under  Carranza's  name 
and  signature,  but  Cabrera,  in  reality,  was  their 
author. 

Cabrera  Councilor  at  the  Elbow 

For  four  years,  Cabrera  played  the  role  of  an 
astute  councilor  at  Carranza's  side,  suggesting 
ways  out  of  many  a  tight  hole.  I  must  pay 
homage  to  Cabrera's  literary  talent.  He  would 
have  made  an  excellent  professor  of  criticism. 
It  was  only  the  lack  of  logic  in  the  revolution, 
the  lack  of  enough  good  men  to  go  around,  that 
forced  him  to  become  a  Minister  of  Finance.  He 
often  used  his  ability  as  a  writer  to  bamboozle 
the  public  into  believing  that  under  Don 
Venustiano  's  rule,  it  was  living  in  greater  pros- 
perity than  ever  before.  He  was  always  prov- 
ing the  existence  of  a  superavit,  an  excess  of  in- 
come over  outlay;  but  this  was  true  only  be- 
cause the  creditors  to  the  Mexican  debt  (a  mat- 
ter of  hundreds  of  millions)  had  received  no  in- 
terest for  many  years;  because  public  service 
had  been  abandoned  in  many  ways ;  because  not 
a  cent  had  been  given  to  the  school  teachers 
(whom  the  Government  threw  back  upon  the 
towns,  while  the  towns,  with  no  means  of  rais- 


CONDITION  OP  THE  COUNTEY          137 

ing  the  necessary  funds,  simply  closed  the 
schools). 

Cabrera  has  a  sense  of  humor,  with  a  dash 
of  cynicism  in  it.  In  his  efforts  to  get  a  for- 
eign loan,  without  which  no  Government  in 
Mexico,  whatever  it  is,  can  long  survive,  he 
must  have  laughed  to  himself  many  times  as  he 
reread  the  elegant  fabrications  that  issued  from 
his  pen,  to  amuse  the  Mexican  public  and  throw 
dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  United  States  bankers. 
As  the  reader  will  surmise,  the  people  hated 
Cabrera,  because  he  was  the  personification  of 
taxes,  more  taxes,  and  heavier  taxes;  and  then 
because  of  the  gossip  about  his  private  affairs 
and  the  big  deals  he  pulled  off  personally  from 
the  vantage  ground  of  the  ministry.  Of  this 
unpopularity  he  was  himself  aware,  and  he 
used  to  say  ironically:  "I  have  the  honor  of 
being  the  first  and  most  distinguished  thief  in 
Mexico." 

It  is  to  his  credit  that  he  never  batted  an 
eyelash  before  the  attacks  made  upon  him. 
Lawyer  Cabrera  is  a  peace-loving  man.  He 
fought  the  war  through  under  Carranza,  but  he 
was,  like  Bonillas,  always  with  the  rear  guard 
as  part  of  the  administrative  baggage.  But 


138  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

this  did  not  prevent  his  having  in  his  life  a 
dose  of  that  tragic  fatalism  all  the  Mexicans 
mixed  up  in  the  revolution  have.  Two  of  his 
brothers  fell  before  a  firing  squad.  Luis 
Cabrera  himself  would  undoubtedly  have  been 
shot  at  this  moment  if  the  populace  of  Mexico 
City  had  found  him  lying  loose  somewhere  at 
the  time  of  Don  Venustiano's  flight.  But  like 
a  rat  deserting  a  sinking  ship,  he  made  good 
his  escape  several  days  in  advance,  leaving  Car- 
ranza  to  his  fate. 

In  times  of  peace,  when  he  felt  himself  secure 
under  the  power  that  every  Government  has, 
his  audacity  and  self-possession  were  some- 
thing that  inspired  awe.  When  his  enemies 
would  accuse  him  of  having  amassed  a  huge  for- 
tune in  the  Ministry,  he  would  answer  in  a  pub- 
lished article,  offering  to  hand  over  all  his 
gains  to  anybody  who  could  locate  them.  He 
was  a  poor  man — as  poor  as  a  monk  in  the 
desert.  At  first  this  boldness  succeeded  with 
the  public;  but  after  a  while  it  produced  onljj 
laughter. 

Carranza  Sound  at  the  Last 

The  most  terrible  thing  in  the  history  of 
Mexico,  and  the  principal  cause,  in  my  judg- 


CONDITION  OF  THE  COUNTRY          139 

ment,  of  its  abnormal  condition,  is  that  the 
country  has  always  been  governed  by  Generals, 
or,  rather,  by  ' '  rough  riders ' 9  from  the  country 
districts — men  expert  with  the  machete  who  are 
suddenly  put  in  charge  of  bodies  of  soldiers. 
There  have  been  some  civilian  Governments, 
but  they  have  been  few  and  far  between,  like 
islands  lost  in  the  sea.  As  every  Government 
has  been  the  product  of  a  revolution,  the  man 
in  control  has  always  been  a  guerrillero,  bolder 
than  his  comrades,  or  more  clever  in  leading 
and  exploiting  them. 

For  that  reason,  Carranza's  policy  of  having 
done  with  militarism  once  and  for  all,  by  put- 
ting in  the  Presidential  chair  a  thorough-going 
civilian,  was  a  sound  one,  and  exactly  what  the 
country  needed.  The  fallacy  in  it  was  his  choice 
of  an  unsuitable  and  unpopular  candidate  im- 
ported from  abroad,  and  the  violent  method  he 
resorted  to  in  carrying  it  out. 

"Are  there  not  people  in  Mexico,"  the  reader 
may  ask,  "sufficiently  distinguished  to  make 
up  a  purely  civilian  government,  like  those  of 
other  countries?"  Undoubtedly  there  are,  and 
perhaps  there  are  more  such  promising  civilians 
than  in  any  other  republic  of  the  Latin- 


140  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Americas.  Mexico  differs  from  the  other  re- 
publics in  its  racial  composition.  In  the  most 
progressive  Spanish-American  nations,  the 
white  element  predominates  and  is  in  control  of 
public  affairs.  In  Mexico,  the  native  Indians 
are  so  numerous  and  the  whites  so  few,  that 
the  latter,  as  a  result  of  the  revolutions,  are, 
one  may  say,  slaves  of  the  former.  In  Mexico 
there  are,  roughly,  a  million  and  a  half  whites 
against  some  fourteen  million  copper  colored 
people,  Indians  and  half-breeds.  The  Indian 
of  pure  blood  is  a  passive  element  in  the  popu- 
lation and  figures  as  mere  landscape  in  the 
country.  The  real  source  of  trouble  is  the  half- 
breed,  who  seems  to  have  taken  over  the  ap- 
petites and  evil  passions  of  both  races,  without 
inheriting  any  of  the  virtues  of  either. 

Why  an  Intellectual  Can't  Be  President 

From  the  families  of  pure  white  stock  come, 
as  a  rule,  the  people  of  studious  bent,  the  "in- 
tellectuals," who  contribute  moral  prestige  to 
their  country.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  Mexico 
has  given  more  eminent  figures  to  Spanish  lit- 
erature than  any  other  of  the  Spanish- Amer- 
ican countries.  The  population  in  general  has 


CONDITION  OF  THE  COUNTRY          141 

great  fondness  for  art,  an  instinctive  taste  for 
music,  a  passion  for  literature  and  a  veritable 
reverence  for  science.  But  these  polished 
classes — the  whites,  that  is — have  rarely  seen 
one  of  their  number  in  the  Presidential  chair. 

The  distinguished  man  of  education  in  Mex- 
ico may  be  a  famous  professor,  a  great  lawyer, 
a  splendid  physician.  He  may  become  a  jour- 
nalist and  pass  on  to  Congress,  as  deputy  or 
Senator.  He  may  even  get  as  high  as  a  Minis- 
ter 's  Portfolio.  His  chance  for  the  Presidency 
is  very  slight.  To  become  President  you  must 
have  been  a  good  horseman,  deft  with  the 
machete;  and  such  experts  are  commonest 
among  the  copper  colored  elements.  Some  In- 
dian blood,  at  least,  is  necessary  to  be  eligible 
for  the  office  of  Chief  Executive. 

Had  Clemenceau,  Lloyd  George,  or  any  other 
political  leader  of  the  Old  World  been  born  in 
Mexico,  the  pinnacle  of  their  ambition  would 
have  been  the  office  of  Minister  of  Education  in 
a  country  without  schools — the  only  high  posi- 
tion reached  by  the  many  men  of  culture  Mex- 
ico has  produced  in  past  years. 

I  believe  it  impossible,  while  the  nation  is  as 
it  is  at  present,  for  Mexico  to  have  a  govern- 


142  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

ment  made  up  of  civilians.  There  is  no  lack  of 
people  of  ability.  They  can  be  counted  by  the 
dozen;  but  they  live  shut  up  in  their  houses, 
avoiding  direct  contact  with  politics,  or  serving 
in  positions  under  the  triumphant  wielders  of 
the  machete.  You  find  them  wandering  about 
abroad,  trying  often  to  get  a  place  back  home, 
but  feeling  that  their  efforts  will  prove  fruit- 
less. 

Force  Needed  to  Protect  Civilians 

Let  us  suppose  it  were  possible  without  revo- 
lution to  work  the  miracle  of  constituting  a 
government  of  distinguished  peaceful  civilians. 
I  take  it  for  granted  that  such  a  government 
would  be  elected  by  constitutional  means,  for 
if  it  came  into  power  by  revolution,  the  Gen- 
erals, and  not  the  civilians,  would  surely  con- 
trol it.  Once  it  got  into  power,  to  sustain  itself 
and  do  something  useful,  it  would  have  to  de- 
pend for  its  strength  on  a  national  army.  The 
first  job  would  be  to  suppress  the  old  abuses, 
correcting  the  easy-going  manner  the  officials, 
from  the  Minister  down  to  the  humblest  tax 
collector,  have  in  handling  public  money;  prose- 
cuting thieves  and  grafters,  and  eliminating 


CONDITION  OP  THE  COUNTRY         143 

corruption  from  the  administrative  bureaus. 
This  would  create  a  host  of  discontented  peo- 
ple; and  we  know  what  people  do  in  Mexico 
when  they  are  dissatisfied  with  the  Govern- 
ment :  they  rise  against  it,  and  there  are  always 
people  ready  to  join  such  an  insurrection. 

An  army  would  be  needed  to  protect  our  Gov- 
ernment of  illustrious  civilians,  and  that  army 
would  have  to  be  commanded  by  somebody, 
some  General  or  other,  a  General  Martinez,  or 
a  General  Perez.  That  General  would  have  to 
be  somebody  different  from  any  General  ever 
heard  of  in  Mexico  so  far ;  otherwise  he  would 
surely  act  as  logically  as  all  the  famous  Gen- 
erals Mexico  has  had  since  the  time  she  won 
her  independence. 

"I  am  the  man  who  keeps  this  Government 
going.  It's  only  fair  that  I  should  put  these 
pikers  out  of  office  and  run  things  myself.  Why 
should  I  let  these  fellows  put  anything  over 
on  me?" 

And  the  government  of  honest  men,  of  "fath- 
ers of  their  country,"  would  be  out  of  business 
within  a  year. 


144  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

The  Strength  of  Militarism 

Militarism  is  stronger  in  the  Mexico  of  the 
present  than  it  was  in  the  Germany  of  William 
II.  It  is  a  militarism  in  plain  clothes  and  frock 
coats,  Generals,  Colonels  and  Captains,  who  go 
about  like  other  people,  insisting  on  your  call- 
ing them  citizens  and  who  remind  you  that 
before  the  revolution  of  1914  they  were  simple 
civilians.  These  men  form  a  caste  apart  in  the 
population.  They  have  their  idols,  and  these 
idols  they  are  anxious  to  impose  upon  the  coun- 
try as  a  step  to  power. 

Many  people  have  hoped  that  the  fall  of 
Carranza  might  mark  the  beginning  of  a  move- 
ment of  regeneration.  We  shall  soon  be  hear- 
ing high-sounding  phrases  from  this  Mexican 
militarism  with  so  much  of  the  literary  and 
bombastic  in  the  language  it  speaks.  The  vic- 
tors will  be  talking  of  "democracy,  which  be- 
gins its  career  from  this  moment,"  of  "the 
bright  future  opening  before  our  country,"  of 
"the  immediate  realization  of  the  promises  of 
the  revolution,"  and  so  on.  Lies  and  poppy- 
cock, all  such  chatter! 

The  present  revolution  may  be  described  aB 


CONDITION  OF  THE  COUNTRY         145 

the  uprising  of  two  Generals  aspiring  to  the 
Presidency  against  an  energetic  and  stubborn 
President  bent  on  imposing  his  own  civilian  can- 
didate by  violent  means.  There  is  nothing  else 
to  it.  If  Carranza  had  desisted  from  his  pur- 
pose of  forcing  Bonillas  on  the  country  there 
would  have  been  no  insurrection.  Mexico  can 
hope  for  nothing  new  out  of  it,  nor  can  those 
who  suffer  from  the  perpetual  disorder  in  the 
nation,  which  really  deserves  far  kinder  for- 
tune, justifiably  expect  any  immediate  change 
for  the  better. 

Carranza  may  have  been  an  evil  influence, 
but  his  conquerors  are  men  of  the  same  school, 
without  perhaps  his  vigor  and  persistence  of 
personality.  It  is  useless  to  expect  anything 
now  from  men  like  Obregon  and  Don  Pablo 
Gonzalez.  You  might  as  well  try  to  make  a  new 
suit  of  clothes  out  of  cloth  already  rotting  and 
moth-eaten.  These  two  men  are  well-known 
quantities.  They  will  surprise  nobody.  As  for 
Don  Pablo,  some  people  laugh  at  him  for  his 
insignificance ;  others  are  suspicious  of  his  enig- 
matic good  nature.  Obregon  is  an  impulsive, 
erratic  person,  and  the  people  who  know  him 
best  arc  not,  despite  his  general  popularity, 


146  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

convinced  that  he  was  born  to  lead  a  nation. 
That  kind  of  man  would  be  a  delicious  spec- 
tacle in  the  Presidency  of  a  republic.  The 
thought  of  him  would  surely  cause  a  stampede 
of  people  elsewhere  to  go  and  live  in  Mexico. 

De  la  Huerta— Will  He  Succeed? 

The  only  "new  man"  the  recent  revolution 
has  brought  into  notice  is  Adolfo  de  la  Huerta, 
Governor  of  Sonora.  I  do  not  know  de  la 
Huerta  personally,  but  friends  of  mine  who 
are  friends  of  his  have  talked  to  me  about  him. 
He  is  a  cultivated  and  enthusiastic  young  man 
of  high  aspirations,  who  seems  to  have  kept 
himself  free  from  the  blemish  of  politics  of  the 
Mexican  style.  His  attitude  toward  Carranza 
was  a  noble  and  courageous  one.  He  was  the 
first  man  to  rise  in  insurrection  and  take  per- 
sonal responsibility  therefor,  and  at  first  it 
seemed  that  luck  was  going  against  him. 

He  has  traveled  and  lived  abroad,  a  valuable 
asset  in  a  country  where  the  rulers  generally 
have  never  crossed  the  national  frontiers.  He 
was  Consul  for  some  time  in  New  York.  Be- 
fore this  revolution  began  his  friends  knew  of 
him  only  that  he  was  fond  of  art,  especially  of 


CONDITION  OP  THE  COUNTRY         147 

music,  and  that  -be  was  devoting  himself  en- 
thusiastically to  the  cultivation  of  his  voice,  a 
rather  attractive  tenor. 

This  young  man  reminds  one  of  a  virgin  lost 
in  a  crowd  of  rabid  and  shrewd  old  hags  who 
think  they  can  become  young  again  by  rubbing 
against  her.  Who  knows  whether  this  man  can 
resist  the  contamination  of  his  environment? 

"Then  there  is  no  way  out  for  Mexico?"  my 
reader  may  ask. 

Yes,  there  is  probably  a  way  out,  but  I  do 
not  know  what  it  is.  I  simply  am  sure  that 
there  is  one.  I  am  an  optimist.  In  this  world 
everything  adjusts  itself,  sometimes  well  and 
sometimes  badly,  but  eventually  things  turn  out 
all  right.  Life  is  stronger  than  the  barbarism 
and  stupidity  of  men.  Sometimes  the  remedy 
is  pleasant  to  the  taste,  sometimes  it  is  bitter 
as  gall ;  but  in  the  end  things  fall  into  that  or- 
derly rhythm  without  which  life  is  impossible. 


VH.     THE  GENERALS 

I  MUST  begin  this  chapter  with  a  story. 
In  the  second  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  when  Ferdinand  VII.  of  Spain  de- 
stroyed the  constitutional  regime  and  restored 
the  absolute  monarchy,  there  was,  so  people 
say,  a  very  wretched  actor  playing  in  a  comedy 
theater  in  Madrid.  He  was  not  merely  a  bad 
actor.  His  ineptitude  surpassed  anything  that 
the  public  of  the  Spanish  capital  had  ever  seen. 
When  things  were  getting  past  the  limit  of  en- 
durance, a  plot  was  hatched  to  drive  him  off  the 
stage  one  evening  with  a  fusillade  of  potatoes. 
But  the  actor,  who  in  his  way  was  no  fool,  man- 
aged to  get  wind  of  what  was  in  store  for  him 
and  made  arrangements  to  avoid  it. 

"Long  live  the  absolute  monarchy!"  he 
shouted,  stepping  forward  on  the  stage.  "Down 
with  the  Liberals!"  And  the  audience  in  the 
theater  fell  into  abashed  silence.  Who  dared  at- 
tack a  man  with  such  words  on  his  lips?  Any 
hostile  demonstration  would  have  been  inter- 
preted as  an  act  of  treason  to  the  King. 

148 


THE  GENERALS  149 

Defenders  of  Present  Mexican  Rule 

A  device  somewhat  similar  has  been  tried 
with  me  by  a  number  of  people  who  find  it  to 
their  personal  interest  to  support  the  present 
Government  in  Mexico.  And  it  will,  in  the  fu- 
ture, be  tried  by  many,  very  many  others,  by 
everybody  in  fact  who  thinks  it  will  help  him 
along  in  his  business  to  win  the  gratitude  of 
the  ruling  clique  in  that  country  by  rushing  to 
its  defense  here.* 

"He  is  attacking  Latin  America, "  they  shout, 
like  the  comedian  of  Madrid.  "He  is  throw- 
ing mud  at  people  who  speak  his  own  language 
and  are  of  his  own  flesh  and  blood  I" 

Now,  in  my  long  career  as  a  writer,  I  have 
done  plenty  of  things  that  will  protect  me,  with 
some  to  spare,  from  any  such  childish  insults. 
In  the  last  twenty  years  I  have  written  a  great 
deal  in  defense  of  the  Spanish-American  na- 
tions, and  I  have  advertised  in  many  countries 
all  that  Spanish  civilization  has  done  and  is 
doing  in  the  New  World. 

I  have  addressed  not  only  audiences  that 
speak  Spanish.  Why  persuade  people  who  are 
already  convinced?  I  have  spread  my  ideas  in 


150  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

countries  of  different  languages.  Many  cities 
of  the  United  States  have  heard  lectures  of 
mine  on  Spanish-American  culture.  I  have 
spoken  in  its  defense  even  in  Mexico  itself — 
not  the  pleasantest  of  tasks  by  any  means ;  for 
there,  apart  from  a  small  minority  of  excep- 
tional people,  the  public  as  a  whole,  under  the 
influence  of  a  defective  education,  deifies  the 
Indian,  despite  all  his  cannibalistic  and  heart- 
eating  traditions,  endows  him  with  a  whole  set 
of  historic  virtues  and  reviles  the  Spaniard 
who  first  planted  on  the  country's  soil  the 
standard  of  Christian  civilization. 

The  "  Gunmen  Who  Exploit  Mexico" 

It  is  usual  for  people  who  feel  themselves  in 
the  wrong  and  don't  know  how  to  get  out  of 
their  mess  to  confuse  issues  by  distorting  their 
antagonist's  words.  That  trick  will  not  work 
with  me.  I  say  exactly  what  I  think,  and  it  is 
useless  to  pretend  I  have  said  what  I  did  not 
say  and  will  never  say.  Latin  America  (within 
which  the  Mexican  nation  chances  to  be  situ- 
ated) is  one  thing.  But  the  crowd  of  gunmen 
which  is  exploiting  and  dishonoring  the  poor 
people  of  Mexico  is  quite  another. 


THE  GENERALS  151 

I  shall  always  defend  the  independence  and 
dignity  of  the  nations  that  partake  of  my  na- 
tive blood,  but  the  mere  fact  that  a  gang  of 
guerrillas,  with  a  grip  on  the  throat  of  Mexico, 
happens  to  use  my  language  to  express  its  col- 
lective egotism  and  ambition  is  not  sufficient  to 
win  my  support.  In  my  works  I  fought  Ger-* 
man  militarism  tooth  and  nail  because  I  consid- 
ered it  a  curse  on  the  world.  Must  I  compro- 
mise, then,  with  Mexican  militarism  just  be- 
cause, as  compared  with  the  German,  that  mili- 
tarism is  something  grotesque  and  absurd! 

For  the  very  reason  that  I  am  a  Spaniard, 
and  love  Latin  America,  I  feel  in  honor  bound 
to  combat  that  pop-gun  terrorism  which  is  dis- 
crediting everybody  of  Spanish  race.  If  the 
Mexico  of  Obregon,  of  Villa,  of  the  rest  of  them, 
were  located  at  the  other  end  of  the  American 
continent,  in  Tierra  del  Fuego,  let  us  say,  we 
could  let  it  fume  in  peace.  The  fact  is,  however, 
that  Mexico  borders  on  the  United  States,  the 
most  powerful  nation  in  the  world  at  the  pres- 
ent moment.  Mexico,  in  its  revolutionary 
greed,  has  involved  England,  France,  and  all 
the  countries  which  make  up  world  opinion. 
And  the  disgrace  falls  back  upon  every  one  of 


152  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

us  who,  by  ties  of  Spanish  blood,  feel  associated 
with  that  unhappy  people. 

In  a  subsequent  article  on  "  Mexico  and 
Latin  America,"  I  shall  say  something  about 
the  damage  which  the  abnormal  state  of  affairs 
in  Mexico,  by  reason  of  the  Spanish  language 
of  that  country,  does  to  the  prestige  of  Span- 
iards in  general  and  particularly  of  the  Span- 
ish-speaking States  of  the  Americas.  Human- 
ity, as  a  whole,  does  not  know  geography.  It 
generalizes  dangerously  in  its  judgments  of  na- 
tions and  races.  Most  people,  when  they  think 
of  poor  Mexico,  with  one  stupid  revolution  suc- 
ceeded by  a  more  stupid  one,  take  no  trouble  to 
distinguish  that  country  from  Argentina,  Bra- 
zil, Chile,  or  Uruguay.  "The  usual  Latin 
American  stuff !  What  can  you  expect? ' ' 

Truth  Improper  for  Export 

There  is  only  one  way  to  remove  such  false 
impressions,  and  that  is  to  tell  the  truth.  Yes, 
the  truth!  But  Truth  is  the  last  lady  on  earth 
that  some  people  care  to  be  introduced  to.  A 
few  days  ago  I  met  a  Mexican  who  furnished 
me  with  some  of  the  data  I  used  in  my  articles. 
I  was  not  writing  a  novel.  All  those  stories,  all 


THE  GENERALS  153 

that  gossip,  all  that  talk  about  graft  and  rob- 
bery, I  got  either  in  Mexico  or  from  Mexicans. 
' '  It 's  a  shame ! "  he  said  to  me.  *  *  Those  articles 
of  yours  are  a  disaster  for  Mexico !"  ''Wait  a 
minute!"  I  said.  "For  Mexico,  or  for  the  peo- 
ple who  are  bossing  and  robbing  Mexico?  If 
the  latter,  I  tell  you  frankly,  I'm  tickled  to 
death.  I  wanted  to  get  those  fellows!  How- 
ever, that 's  not  the  point.  Was  I,  or  was  I  not, 
telling  the  truth  f  " 

I  could  see  by  the  expression  on  his  face  that 
he  was  going  to  say  it  was  not  all  true.  But  he 
remembered  then  that  a  number  of  the  items 
had  come  from  no  one  but  himself.  "It  was 
the  truth,"  he  answered  with  conviction.  "But 
there  are  truths  and  truths.  The  truth  we  can 
tell  to  our  friends.  But  do  you  have  to  go 
shouting  it  from  the  housetops?"  And  he 
added,  after  a  moment's  reflection,  as  though 
something  brilliant  had  occurred  to  him :  ' '  You 
might  have  kept  those  articles  for  Spain.  "We 
don't  mind  what  people  think  over  there.  But 
publish  them  in  the  United  States  ...  Of  all 
places  ...  !" 

The  reader  will  get  the  point.  The  truth  about 
actual  conditions  in  Mexico  is  not  considered 


154  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

down  there  as  proper  goods  for  export  to  the 
United  States.  As  for  the  opposite  of  the  truth 
— export  all  you  want,  and  no  questions  asked ! 
But  any  one  who  describes  things  as  they  are 
is  an  enemy  of  Mexico! 

A  Militarism  Based  on  Disorder 

Perhaps  I  should  not  stress  the  comparison 
between  German  militarism  and  the  militarism 
of  Mexican  brand.  German  militarism  seems 
to  have  gone  forever;  but  that  of  Mexico  is  in 
the  flush  of  youth,  and  it  has  a  long  and  busy 
life  ahead  of  it. 

German  militarism  was  based  on  tradition, 
on  hierarchy,  on  order,  and  besides,  it  origin- 
ated in  the  victories  of  1871  and  in  the  conquests 
of  territory  those  victories  resulted  in.  Mexican 
militarism  is  based  on  disorder,  on  the  sudden 
attack  boldly  conceived,  on  the  insurrection  con- 
sidered as  a  means  of  advancement.  In  its 
whole  history,  Mexican  militarism  shows  only 
a  series  of  civil  wars,  resulting  in  execution 
for  private  citizens,  plundering  for  towns,  de- 
struction for  the  National  Railways.  We  have 
yet  to  see  what  it  could  show,  in  the  way  of  in- 


THE  GENERALS  155 

telligence  and  professional  skill,  if  it  had  to 
deal  with  an  attack  from  abroad. 

The  German  Generals  set  up  an  Emperor 
who  was  Emperor  once  for  all,  and  passed  the 
office  on  to  his  sons.  The  Mexican  Generals 
set  up  a  republican  Emperor,  from  time  to  time, 
in  accord  with  their  own  desires  and  ambitions. 
Yesterday  it  was  Carranza,  "Our  First  Chief, " 
"Our  Beloved  Leader" — but  for  the  moment, 
and  all  rights  reserved  to  kick  him  out  and 
"suicide"  him,  if  necessary!  To-day  it  is 
Obregon,  hail-fellow-well-met,  the  chief  with  a 
smile  and  a  slap  on  the  back  for  everybody! 
And  to-morrow,  somebody  else,  any  one  at  all, 
provided  he  promises  to  give  what  his  prede- 
cessor failed  to  give,  because  there  are  not 
enough  easy  berths  in  the  Mexican  Government 
to  accommodate  all  who  would  like  to  fill  one. 

Everybody's  Generals 

In  former  times  there  were,  in  Mexico,  only 
such  Generals  as  belonged  to  the  regular  army, 
soldiers  by  profession,  like  the  professional 
soldiers  of  every  other  country.  Now  there 
are  Generals  and  Generals!  There  are  Gener- 
als appointed  by  Carranza.  There  are  Gener- 


156  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

als  created  by  Villa.  There  are  Generals  manu- 
factured by  Felix  Diaz.  There  are  Generals 
counterfeited  by  Zapata.  Who  is  not  a  General 
down  there?  During  my  visit  in  Mexico  City, 
whenever  I  was  introduced  to  a  simple  Colonel, 
I  rubbed  my  eyes  for  a  second  look,  and  al- 
most with  pity  for  the  poor  fellow.  "What's 
wrong  with  this  man?"  I  thought.  "He's  not 
even  a  Brigadier."  » 

Another  point  of  difference  between  militar- 
ism in  Europe  and  that  of  Mexico !  In  the  old 
world,  the  General  carries  a  sword  and  swears 
by  it.  The  Mexican  General  in  the  make-up 
supplied  by  the  revolution,  does  not  know  what 
a  sword  is.  He  never  wore  one.  He  carries  a 
revolver  in  his  belt,  and  I  can  imagine  him 
swearing  a  theatrical  oath:  "By  my  six- 
shooter!" 

Whether  Generals  or  Colonels,  they  are  all 
boys,  scarcely  of  voting  age,  boys  scandalously 
immature  and  still  infected,  for  the  most  part, 
with  the  bellicose  aggressiveness  and  perver- 
sity of  the  youngster  in  the  preparatory  school. 
Most  of  them  held  small  jobs  under  the  Gov- 
ernment of  Porfirio  Diaz ;  or  else  they  were  or- 
dinary laborers,  or  even  idlers,  ne'er-do-wells, 


THE  GENERALS  157 

who  enlisted  under  the  revolutionary  banner 
and  managed  to  win  the  little  gold  eagle  which 
is  the  symbol  of  their  present  grade. 

The  Thrill  of  Catchwords 

The  highest  original  social  rank  that  I  f  onnd 
represented  among  the  Generals  was  that  of 
university  student.  Scattered  among  the  few 
officers  of  urban  origin  there  are  Generals  who 
were  formerly  rancheros,  or  cowboys  from 
the  cattle  ranches.  These  illiterate  rustics  lis- 
ten to  their  city-bred  comrades  with  wide  open 
mouths,  and  kindle  at  every  mention  of  the 
words  '  '  liberty, "  ' '  democracy, "  "  redistribu- 
tion of  property,''  and  so  on — phrases  they  do 
not  understand  at  all,  but  which  send  thrills  of 
sacred  consecration  up  and  down  their  backs 
whenever  they  hear  them. 

All  these  Generals  boast  of  their  humble  ori- 
gin, and  go  out  of  their  way  to  refer  to  it  as 
•  a  title  to  distinction.  Some  of  them  are  "So- 
cialist Generals,"  while  others  claim  even  to 
be  Bolshevists.  However,  their  "comrades"  of 
the  rank  and  file  must  be  careful  not  to  carry 
the  principles  of  brotherly  love  into  matters  of 
discipline.  The  "Citizen  General"  is  quite 


158  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

capable  of  ordering  a  hundred  executions  or  so 
just  to  "keep  order."  The  Generals,  as  a  rule, 
ihate  uniforms.  Many  of  them  never  owned 
one.  They  pin  the  gold  eagle  to  a  coat  lapel 
or  to  their  enormous  felt  hat,  and  they  are 
ready  for  dress  parade. 

Their  Wonderful  Revolvers 

The  General's  outfit  has  one  other  distinc- 
tive mark — the  revolver.  I  remember  that,  as 
a  boy,  I  used  to  notice  how  Generals  in  Spain, 
France  and  other  European  countries,  when 
tbsy  were  in  citizen  clothes,  wore  red  sashes 
under  their  waistcoats.  This  was  an  indication 
of  rank;  and  when  they  wished  to  be  recog- 
nized they  simply  lifted  the  flaps  of  their  vests. 
The  Mexican  General  also  has  a  sash,  but  a 
sash  of  tanned  leather,  a  "Sam  Brown"  affair, 
stuffed  with  fifty  cartridges  or  more,  and  a  re- 
volver usually  worn  in  back.  When,  as  you 
walk  down  a  Mexican  street,  you  meet  a  gen- 
tleman with  the  lower  part  of  his  vest  unbut- 
toned, just  enough  to  show  the  belt  and  the  car- 
tridges, you  cannot  be  mistaken.  He  is  a  Gen- 
eral, or  at  least  a  Colonel,  "of  the  revolution." 
He  is  taking  his  pistol  out  for  a  constitutional. 


THE  GENERALS  1§9 

And  what  guns  they  wear !  If  you  have  never 
seen  the  revolvers  of  the  Mexican  War  Lords, 
your  education  is  still  incomplete.  The  wildest 
dreams  of  the  most  delirious  German  fire-eater 
who  ever  lived  are  surpassed  by  realities  in 
Mexico.  There  are  machine-gun  pistols.  There 
are  pistols  with  folding  stocks  that  can  be  in- 
stantaneously transformed  into  rifles.  There 
are  large-bore  pistols  made  for  firing  explosive 
bullets.  I  left  the  country  without  getting  to 
see  the  famous  "papa  and  mamma"  pistols. 
But  I  was  assured  by  people  whom  I  trust  that 
there  are  pistols  in  Mexico  which  when  they  are 
discharged  say  "papa"  and  "mamma,"  like 
the  mechanical  dolls  of  the  toy  shops.  Some 
of  them  even  play  a  piece  of  music. 

The  Dueling  Type 

At  times  you  meet  a  short,  hollow-chested, 
neurotic-looking  fellow — fine  points,  these  in  a 
regular  soldier.  You  wonder  whether  that  is 
a  man  or  what  in  the  world  it  is.  There  is  no 
doubt  in  this  case  either.  This  time  it  is  a 
pistol  taking  a  General  out  to  walk.  Then 
again  you  are  sitting  in  a  train  and  suddenly 
you  start  with  surprise.  A  General  has  just 


160  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

vanished  through  a  little  door  marked  '  '  Gentle- 
men," but  before  hurrying  away  he  has  taken 
off  his  belt  and  parked  his  artillery  on  the  seat 
beside  you. 

The  arguments  that  spring  up  at  all  hours 
of  day  and  night  between  these  armed  men  are 
a  source  of  danger  not  only  to  themselves  but 
to  the  public.  At  best  one  General  kills  an- 
other at  high  noon  in  some  candy  store  on  the 
principal  street  of  the  city,  and  nobody  arrests 
him.  Then  again  two  Generals  will  open  fire 
in  the  middle  of  a  public  park,  and  the  cannon- 
ade does  not  stop  until  all  their  ammunition 
has  been  exhausted.  A  matter  of  thirty  or 
forty  minutes,  perhaps,  and  no  casualties — 
unless  perhaps  some  passerby,  not  knowing 
that  two  Generals  are  scowling  at  each  other 
in  that  particular  place,  runs  into  a  bullet  be- 
fore he  can  get  away. 

But  Everybody  Totes  a  Gun 

To  be  fair  to  the  Generals,  I  must  add  that 
they  are  not  the  only  people  in  Mexico  who 
carry  guns.  Revolvers  are  as  indispensable  as 
neckties  to  a  gentleman's  wardrobe.  Mexico 
City  since  the  revolution  began  has  lived  the 


THE  GENERALS  161 

life  of  a  dime  novel.  The  " movie"  men  do 
not  have  to  rack  their  brains  for  subjects.  They 
read  the  papers ;  murders,  assassinations,  high- 
way robberies,  kidnapings,  bands  of  masked 
men !  The  capital,  no  less,  was  the  home  of  the 
famous  "Band  of  the  Gray  Car."  The  Mex- 
ican public  has  always  supposed  that  gang  to 
have  been  in  the  employ  of  Generals.  People 
are  even  more  specific.  They  allege  that  its 
leader  was  one  of  the  present  candidates  for 
the  Presidency  of  the  republic. 

The  only  difference  between  General  and 
civilian,  in  the  matter  of  revolvers,  is  that  the 
Generals  wear  their  guns  in  full  view  while 
ordinary  people  keep  them  half  concealed.  The 
revolver  is  used  for  all  sorts  of  purposes. 
Whenever  I  was  at  a  picnic  in  the  country  and 
a  bottle  had  to  be  opened,  some  friend  was  sure 
suddenly  to  produce  a  pistol.  "It's  so  much 
simpler,  you  see."  And  civilian  or  soldier,  as 
he  might  chance  to  be,  he  would  hammer  away 
at  the  metal  top  of  the  bottle  until  it  came  off. 
And  the  weapon  was  loaded  all  the  time. 


162  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Explosive  Under  Trappings 

Mexico  is  a  blessed  country !  There  is  some- 
thing affable,  vehement  even,  about  its  cour- 
tesy. When  a  friend  shakes  hands  with  you 
he  throws  one  arm  over  your  shoulder.  And  I 
adopted  the  manner  myself.  But  when  I  got  my 
arm  over  the  shoulder  of  an  acquaintance  I 
used,  out  of  curiosity,  to  let  my  hand  fall  gradu- 
ally downward  toward  his  belt.  It  never  got 
quite  that  far.  In  the  neighborhood  of  the 
man's  waist  I  would  always  encounter  a  sort 
of  metallic  framework.  It  was  the  revolver  and 
its  sheath,  along  with  a  whole  magazine  of  car- 
tridges. The  Mexican  revolver  is  intended  for 
the  long-drawn-out  battle.  It  required  a  lav- 
ish supply  of  munitions. 

For  the  life  of  me  I  could  never  find  out 
whether  the  Dean  of  the  university  also  carried 
a  gun.  The  sly  fox  always  avoided  my  em- 
brace and  his  studious  precautions  against  any 
such  contingency  left  me  convinced  that  my 
suspicions  of  him  were  well  founded.  ' '  Oh,  my 
dear  So-and-so,  so  glad  to  see  you!"  And  I 
went  around  embracing  them  all  one  after  the 
other  and  they  all  had  the  inevitable  revolver. 


THE  GENERALS  163 

When  I  say  all,  I  mean  all — Ministers,  Under 
Secretaries,  Journalists,  Deputies  and  Sena- 
tors, and  these  latter  with  good  reason,  because 
debates  in  Congress  often  end  with  an  exchange 
of  a  bullet  or  two  outside  the  chambers. 

Carranza  Wore  One,  Too 

Even  Carranza,  as  President  of  the  republic, 
used  to  carry,  under  his  severe  ceremonial  frock 
coat,  a  horse-pistol  with  an  extra  large  supply 
of  munitions.  Poor  Don  Venustiano!  He 
knew  his  times  and  his  people  only  too  well! 
He  felt  himself  surrounded  by  experts  in  dar 
la  vuelta,  by  people  only  too  ready  to  bite  the 
hand  that  was  feeding  them.  He  was  sure  that, 
sooner  or  later,  he  would  have  to  defend  his 
own  life.  What,  probably,  he  never  foresaw 
was  that  the  men  trusted  to  guard  him  would 
rouse  him  one  night  with  cries  of  "Viva  Obre- 
gon!",  empty  their  guns  into  him  point  blank, 
and  then  assert  that  he  had  died  a  suicide !  Car- 
ranza a  suicide!  Carranza,  the  most  stubborn 
man  in  the  world,  the  "mule  in  the  President's 
parlor/'  as  his  enemies  used  to  say!  For  any 
one  who  knew  Carranza,  that  suicide  story  is 


164  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

the  most  brazen,  the  most  impudent,  calumny 
that  could  ever  have  been  cooked  up. 

This  gang  of  country  louts  and  roisterers, 
who  call  themselves  Generals  and  are  running 
the  country  for  what  there  is  in  it,  are  for  the 
moment  worshipers  of  Obregon.  Obregon  is 
one  of  them.  I  might  call  him,  even,  the  Mex- 
ican General  par  excellence;  and  his  followers 
adore  him  because  in  him  they  see  their  own 
image  triumphant.  They  all  pretend  to  be  in- 
sulted if  you  accuse  them  of  militarism.  Mili- 
tarists? Not  they!  They  are  "revolution- 
aries!" They  are,  and  they  are  going  to  re- 
main, simple  ' '  citizens ' ' ! 

The  Revolutionary  Caste 

Nevertheless,  they  form  a  caste  apart  from 
the  rest  of  the  nation.  They  support  and  pro- 
tect one  another;  and  now  again  to  get  one  of 
their  number  in  power,  they  have  gone  back 
to  the  barracks,  or  to  the  mountains,  to  incite 
existing  troops  to  mutiny,  or  to  raise  new 
forces,  and  produce  a  revolution  that  is  Kevolu- 
tion  No.  64  in  the  course  of  a  single  century! 

Despite  all  his  defects  Carranza,  during  the 
last  months  of  his  life,  had  a  sound  conception 


THE  GENERALS  165 

of  what  his  country  needed.  He  wanted  to  cre- 
ate a  government  of  civilians;  he  wanted  to 
hand  the  Presidency  over  to  a  man  who  had 
never  been  in  the  army.  He  was  determined  to 
have  done  with  Generals  and  militarism  once 
and  for  all.  As  the  leader  of  a  long  revolution- 
ary war  he  knew  better  than  any  one  else  what 
Mexican  militarism  means  for  that  country. 
But  he  chose  a  bad  candidate  and  was  over- 
confident of  his  own  strength.  He  forgot  that 
treason  is  a  fundamental  in  Mexican  national 
politics,  and  the  reward  for  his  noble  endeavor 
has  been  defeat  and  assassination! 

At  this  moment  militarism  is  in  higher  as- 
cendancy in  Mexico  than  ever  before.  The 
civilian  Provisional  President,  Adolfo  de  la 
Huerta,  well  meaning  and  estimable  youth  that 
he  is,  represents  only  an  interlude  in  Mexican 
affairs.  Should  he  try  to  impose  his  own  ideas 
upon  the  course  of  events  he  would  fall  over 
night.  Militarism  is  in  command  in  Mexico, 
and  militarism  means  Obregon. 

Obregon's  Chances 

"How  about  the  rest  of  the  country ?"  some 
one  may  ask. 


166  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

The  rest  of  the  country  for  yeafrs  past  has 
not  figured  in  political  intrigue,  and  it  has  no 
desire  to  figure  there.  The  floor  is  held  now 
by  those  who  have  succeeded  in  the  recent  insur- 
rection, by  militarists  or  by  civilians  standing 
with  the  militarists  in  the  hope  of  getting  some 
berth  which  only  a  civilian  can  fill. 

It  will  be  useless  for  Obregon  to  talk  of  "free 
speech."  If  he  were  a  newcomer  in  Mexican 
life,  a  few  fools  might  believe  him.  But  Obre- 
gon is  only  too  well  known.  Nobody  has  for- 
gotten the  victims  he  once  ordered  his  sub- 
ordinates to  shoot,  nor  the  storekeepers  he  set 
to  sweeping  the  streets,  nor  the  respectable 
prisoners  he  herded  in  cattle  cars.  Obregon  is 
a  Proconsul  of  the  Eoman  decadence,  when  au- 
thorities used  to  write  jokes  and  puns  around 
their  signatures  to  death  warrants.  Nobody 
in  Mexico  is  going  to  do  any  talking.  The 
closed  mouth  is  the  symbol  of  prudence  there. 

"But  will  Obregon  hold  the  support  of  the 
militarists  I" 

No! 

It  is  the  part  of  logic  to  say  "No."  Car- 
ranza  had  far  greater  prestige  than  Obregon 
will  ever  have.  He  was  "Leader"  and  "First 


THE  GENERALS  167 

Chief"  in  reality!  He  could  not  find  enough 
plums  to  go  around!  And  he  was  murdered! 

The  moment  Obregon  is  unable  to  make  good 
on  all  the  promises  he  has  made,  and  to  satisfy 
all  the  ambitions  he  has  aroused,  the  moment 
his  offices  are  all  filled  and  many  of  his  present 
friends  are  left  out,  the  disappointed  people 
will  unite  with  other  disappointed  people,  the 
cry  of  "Death  to  Obregon!  Viva  Tom  or  Dick 
or  Harry !"  will  be  raised — and  Mexico  will 
have  one  revolution  more.  As  I  shall  show  in 
another  article  on  "The  Mexican  Army,"  the 
elements  for  such  a  new  revolution  will  not  be 
lacking. 

"But  what  is  your  idea,  then,"  several 
friends  of  mine  have  asked,  ' '  in  attacking  Mex- 
ican militarism  with  such  harsh  revelations!" 

The  answer  is  easy.  I  want  to  contribute  all 
I  can  toward  the  destruction  of  that  militarism, 
which  is  the  principal  cause  of  the  backward- 
ness and  anarchical  state  of  affairs  in  which 
Mexico  is  living.  So  long  as  that  country  does 
not  suppress  its  Generals,  who  are  everlasting- 
ly bent  on  tyrannizing  over  it,  so  long  as  it  is 
not  ruled  by  pacific  citizens  able  to  think  in 
modern  terms,  Mexico  will  remain  a  sad  ex- 


168  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

ception,  an  object  of  loathing  and  disgust, 
among  all  civilized  peoples.  The  well-to-do 
classes  of  Mexico  have  fled  the  country  and  are 
wanderers  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  The  mid- 
dle and  professional  classes  have  continued 
living  at  home,  but  under  deplorable  conditions, 
and  either  not  daring  to  speak  at  all,  or  saying 
what  they  really  think  in  as  low  a  voice  as 
possible.  What  else  can  they  do,  if  militarism 
is  in  the  saddle?  Where  can  they  find  protec- 
tion, if  the  strongest  portion  of  the  people,  kept 
in  ignorance,  formerly  by  the  priests  and  now 
by  Generals  calling  themselves  liberators,  fol- 
low the  military  men  blindly  on  receipt  of 
a  rifle  and  on  a  promise  of  $2  a  day,  and  a  free 
hand? 

I  have  with  me  a  number  of  letters  from 
Mexicans,  written  to  me  before  I  went  to  Mex-< 
ico  and  after  I  got  there.  They  read  like  the 
lamentations  of  slaves,  denouncing  the  crimes 
of  their  oppressors  and  doubting  whether  there 
will  ever  be  justice  in  that  country.  Many  of 
the  letters  contain  insults  addressed  to  me,  and 
I  shall  keep  them  because  of  those  insults,  be- 
cause of  their  delightful  injustice.  When  I  was 
noticed  at  the  capital  in  the  company  of  men 


THE  GENERALS  169 

in  the  Government  my  correspondents  thought 
I  had  "sold  out  to  the  oppressors  of  the  real 
Mexico."  They  imagined  I  was  going  to  raise 
a  paean  of  eulogy  in  honor  of  Carranza  and  the 
militarism  which  was  doing  so  much  wrong  to 
the  nation  and  was  finally  to  turn  against  its 
chief.  They  were  looking  for  an  avenger  to 
denounce  their  oppressors,  and  they  foresaw  in 
me  one  more  defender  of  tyranny. 

I  imagine  that  by  this  time  they  have  realized 
their  mistake.  I  had  to  frequent  the  circles  of 
those  in  power  to  see  things  in  their  true  light 
Now  I  have  seen  what  I  wanted  to  see,  and  I 
go  on  with  my  work. 

Wanted,  an  Aroused  Public  Opinion 

"And  what  is  that  work?"  you  ask. 

Simply  to  tell  the  truth  to  the  damage  of 
triumphant  militarism!  And  if  I  should  suc- 
ceed in  the  task  it  would  be  a  great  day  for 
Mexico !  A  writer,  to  be  sure,  is  a  small  man 
for  such  a  big  job.  But  just  as  I  have  spoken 
here  in  the  United  States  I  shall  go  on  speak- 
ing in  Europe  and  everywhere  else.  And  who 
knows  ?  German  militarism  was  a  far  stronger 
and  a  far  less  ridiculous  thing.  But  no  slight 


170  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

influence  on  fts  ultimate  destruction  came  from 
the  uprising  of  public  opinion  against  it 
throughout  the  world.  I  shall  work  to  create 
such  a  public  opinion,  to  isolate  the  militarism 
in  Mexico,  to  deprive  it  of  all  mistaken  support 
abroad.  Then  we  shall  see  whether  it  grows 
stronger  or  weaker;  whether  finally  it  does  not 
die  without  a  friend  in  the  world ;  whether  the 
peace-loving  and  intelligent  classes  of  people 
in  Mexico  must  go  on  living  in  oppression  and 
humiliation  as  slaves  to  the  first  machetero 
that  comes  along;  whether  they  are  not  able  to 
govern  themselves  as  people  do  in  other  mod- 
ern countries ! 

And  in  this  idea  I  shall  go  on  with  my%  work 
iinless  the  Mexican  militarists  take  it  into  their 
heads  to  " suicide"  me,  as  they  did  Carranza. 


THE  MEXICAN  ARMY 

MEXICO  once  had  a  regular  army  that  was 
well  organized  and  quite  comparable  to 
the  military  establishments  of  other  countries. 
This  army  was  demoralized,  first,  by  the  revolu- 
tion of  Madero.  During  the  long  civil  struggle 
led  by  Carranza  it  fell  to  pieces  completely. 
The  so-called  Federal  Army  was  then  abolished 
as  a  dangerous  institution  created  by  Porfirio 
Diaz.  Even  the  officers'  training  schools,  the 
military  academies,  were  closed.  Anybody  who 
had  ever  held  a  commission  as  a  Federal  officer 
was  regarded  with  suspicion  by  the  triumphant 
revolutionaries. 

The  "army"  now  rampant  in  Mexico  is  made 
up  of  the  old  revolutionary  bands,  gradually 
whipped  into  the  outward  appearance  of  regi- 
ments and  led  by  former  guerrilleros  newly 
baptized  as  Colonels.  "When  such  regiments 
are  stationed  in  Mexico  City  or  one  of  the  large 
towns  they  are  equipped,  after  a  fashion,  with 
uniforms,  though  the  privates  never  quite  suc- 

171 


172  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

ceed  in  all  looking  alike.  On  holidays  the  offi- 
cers make  a  more  dazzling  display  of  scarfs 
and  gold  lace  than  any  other  soldiers  on  earth, 
and  this  bellicose  splendor  is  often  in  grotesque 
contrast  with  the  oily  skins  and  unkempt  beards 
that  it  adorns. 

But  in  the  outlying  districts  the  soldier  is  an 
ordinary  peasant,  with  that  enormous  Mexican 
sombrero  which  everybody  knows,  two  well- 
filled  cartridge  belts  stretching  bandoleer- 
fashion  from  shoulders  to  waist  and  crossing 
at  the  breast,  and,  finally,  a  rifle.  Bayonets  are 
not  used  in  the  Mexican  Army.  The  city  bat- 
talions sometimes  carry  them  to  piece  out  their 
"uniform,"  but  the  soldiers  do  not  know  what 
they  are  for.  They  are,  in  fact,  of  little  sig- 
nificance in  Mexican  warfare,  a  matter  of  long- 
winded  fusillades  at  limit  range,  the  outcome 
of  which  each  General  can  interpret  to  his  par- 
ticular taste,  reporting  grand  strategic  concep- 
tions or  happy  tactical  maneuvers  a  la  Na- 
poleon, as  he  sees  fit.  The  General  with  the 
most  cartridges  and  the  greatest  endurance  in 
firing  them  is  the  one  who  gets  away  with  the 
victory. 

Obregon  against  Villa  was  a  Joffre  or  a  Foch 


THE  MEXICAN  ARMY  173 

so  long  as  he  had  his  back  to  the  port  of  Vera 
Cruz.  Cartridges  came  in  there  every  day 
from  the  United  States,  for  the  American  Gov- 
ernment was  backing  Carranza,  ungrateful  and 
unappreciative  though  the  First  Chief  proved 
to  be.  Villa,  on  the  other  hand,  without  any 
support  across  the  border,  received  no  fire- 
works at  all.  Eventually  he  had  to  decamp, 
"routed"  by  the  great  one-armed  strategist  of 
Celaya. 

An  Army  of  Both  Sexes 

The  Mexican  Army  is  composed  of  men  and 
women. 

No  one  has  ever  decided  conclusively  which 
of  the  sexes  makes  the  better  soldiers. 

The  Mexican  takes  his  wife  everywhere.  He 
is  a  sentimental  chap,  readily  susceptible  to 
feminine  charms  and  quite  likely  to  be  unfaith- 
ful to  the  woman  he  has  sworn  to  love  and 
cherish.  But  he  cherishes  her  all  the  same. 
His  spouse  goes  with  him  into  sorrow  and  joy. 
She  shares  his  comfort  and  his  hardship. 

When  you  are  traveling  on  a  Mexican  rail- 
road you  can  give  odds  that  more  or  less  con- 
cealed somewhere  on  the  train  are  the  wives  of 


174  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

the  engineer,  the  fireman,  the  brakeman  and 
the  conductor.  If  you  feel  inclined  to  prove  it, 
just  start  a  row  with  one  of  the  trainmen.  You 
will  at  once  have  a  hysterical  woman  on  your 
hands,  shrieking  at  the  top  of  her  voice  and 
defending  her  "man"  literally  with  tooth  and 
nail.  If  an  accident  ever  happens  to  one  of  the 
crew  the  most  heartrending  scenes  result  in- 
evitably. A  Mexican  refuses  to  go  anywhere 
without  his  "old  woman."  This  epithet  is  a 
term  of  endearment.  The  "old  woman"  may 
be  twenty  years  old. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  army. 

To  count  the  women  you  count  the  soldiers. 
Every  one  of  them  has  a  wife,  following  the 
regiment  everywhere.  Most  often,  also,  he  has 
a  number  of  children  along. 

In  peace  times  in  the  capital  you  may  see  a 
detachment  with  shouldered  rifles  on  the  way 
to  relieve  guard  or  on  an  expedition  into  the 
country.  Just  imagine !  Alongside  the  column 
and  keeping  step  with  the  men  marches  a  line 
of  copper-colored  women,  wrapped  in  black 
shawls.  They  are  lean  and  wan,  as  though  the 
turmoil  of  that  life,  without  rest  or  quiet,  kept 
all  the  flesh  stripped  from  their  bones.  Each 


THE  MEXICAN  ARMY  175 

woman  carries  a  basket  on  one  arm.  Trotting 
along  at  her  side  are  a  number  of  barefoot 
youngsters.  Some  of  the  little  fellows  are 
naked.  They  keep  smiling  at  their  daddies, 
but  with  a  respectful  eye  out  for  the  officer,  a 
sort  of  much-feared  god,  who  is  always  shooing 
them  away  when  they  run  up  to  take  their 
father  by  the  hand. 

The  "Soldierettes" 

Around  the  barracks  at  certain  hours  of  the 
day  the  doorways  and  sidewalks  are  crowded 
with  women,  sitting  elbow  to  elbow  there  in 
correct  military  alignment.  With  their  black 
shawls  over  light-colored  dresses  they  remind 
you  of  so  many  penguins  lined  up  on  the  edge 
of  some  cliff  on  the  glacial  oceans.  Each  of 
these  women — they  are  dubbed  "soldierettes" 
by  people  of  wit — has  a  basket  at  her  feet.  She 
has  brought  her  " man's"  dinner. 

Eight  there  in  the  middle  of  the  street,  or  it 
may  be  in  a  railroad  station  or  out  in  the  open 
fields,  the  soldier  sits  down  on  the  ground  with 
his  wife  and  children  round  him.  And  he  eats 
his  meal  with  majestic  deliberation  and  slow- 
ness. The  women  are  usually  dirty,  and  often 


176  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

they  are  in  rags  and  tatters.  The  miserable 
life  they  lead  does  not  lend  itself  to  personal 
refinements.  But  the  delicacy,  the  neatness  and 
even  the  primitive  taste  with  which  they  pre- 
pare these  meals  is  something  astonishing. 
The  basket  contains,  besides  food,  a  large  nap- 
kin or  tablecloth,  so  to  speak.  It  has  a  colored 
border,  with  wide  fringes,  so  that  the  woman 
can  stretch  it  tight  on  the  ground.  The  plates 
and  deep  dishes  are  in  earthenware,  with 
painted  frets,  suggesting  the  pottery  of  the 
Aztecs. 

After  the  soldier  has  eaten  he  gets  up, 
tightens  his  belt  and  takes  his  gun.  The  little 
ones  wipe  their  mouths  and  noses  with  their 
knuckles  and  devotedly  kiss  their  daddy's  hand. 
He  pats  them  on  the  head  in  benediction. 
"God  keep  you!"  is  his  stock  phrase  of  fare- 
well in  revolutionary  times,  "and  here's  hop- 
ing they  don't  kill  your  papa!"  The  young- 
sters do  not  understand,  but  the  lean,  copper- 
colored  woman  standing  there  in  her  black 
shawl  lowers  her  head  in  fatalistic  resigna- 
tion. Death !  It  is  so  easy  to  die  in  a  country 
of  revolutions!  That  was  what  her  other 
"man"  said  as  he  went  away  never  to  come 


THE  MEXICAN  ARMY  177 

back.    That  was  the  way  also  with  the  "man" 
before  that  one. 

Faithful  Unto  Death— Only 

For  the  "soldierette"  or  "hard-tack,"  as 
she  is  also  called  (the  actual  word  is  gal- 
leta),  is  faithful  beyond  reproach  to  her 
"man";  bnt  she  goes  to  another  without  the 
slightest  hesitation  the  moment  her  "husband" 
is  killed  or  throws  her  over.  What  good  is  a 
"soldierette"  without  a  soldier?  Neither  pas- 
sion nor  beauty  figure  in  these  unions.  The 
quality  the  Mexican  soldier  most  values  in  his 
"old  woman"  is  her  skill  in  finding  something 
to  eat  and  in  spreading  the  meal  on  the  ground, 
her  ability  to  "stand  up"  under  hard  work. 
When  a  soldier  falls  he  wills  his  woman  to 
some  more  fortunate  comrade  in  arms.  Since 
the  Mexican  Army  takes  men  of  all  ages,  fifteen- 
year-old  boys  may  be  seen  living  with  "hard- 
tacks" old  enough  to  be  their  mothers  or  their 
grandmothers.  And  there  are  wrinkled  old 
men,  with  white  stubble  on  their  chins,  who  get 
their  meals  from  girls  in  their  teens,  whom 
they  have  inherited  from  soldiers  killed  in  some 
previous  skirmish. 


178  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

It  is  during  actual  fighting  in  the  field  that 
the  "soldierette"  gives  proof  of  all  her  powers 
of  endurance  and  self-sacrifice.  Many  Mexican 
Generals  have  thought  of  abolishing  her,  but 
in  ttie  end  they  have  had  to  compromise  with 
her  and  finally  to  seek  her  support.  What  else 
can  be  done  in  an  army  destitute  of  a  supply 
and  sanitary  corps?  The  sick  and  the  wounded 
cannot  be  abandoned  to  chance.  The  "soldier- 
ette ' '  makes  up  for  more  than  one  deficiency  in 
the  Mexican  military  system. 

Not  only  does  she  look  after  the  soldier. 
Sometimes  her  attention  is  needed  by  the  chief. 

"Have  you  a  bite  to  spare f"  the  Captain 
asks  one  of  his  men  during  a  halt  on  march. 
The  officer,  not  provided  as  a  rule  with  "hard- 
tack/' is  much  worse  off  than  the  private. 
6  i  No,  Captain,  but  the  Indian  will  be  back  soon 
and  she'll  be  sure  to  have  something. "  The 
"Indian"  is  another  pet  name  used  by  the  sol- 
diers when  they  get  tired  of  the  "old  woman." 

Foragers  of  Sorts 

When  the  troops  are  on  the  march  the  "sol- 
dierettes"  form  the  advance  guard.  They  keep 
several  miles  ahead,  so  that  when  the  men 


THE  MEXICAN  AEMY  179 

arrive  the  fires  will  be  burning  and  the  meal 
ready.  The  towns  and  villages  are  more  afraid 
of  the  women  than  of  the  soldiers  themselves, 
though  the  latter  have  only  the  vaguest  notions 
of  property  rights  and  the  value  of  human  life. 
The  "soldierette"  will  march  for  whole  days 
with  a  brat  clinging  to  either  hand,  another  in- 
visible one  awaiting  its  call  into  the  world,  a 
pack  of  clothes  and  bedding  on  her  head,  and 
often,  to  top  off  the  outfit,  a  parrot. 

With  so  much  impedimenta  you  would  think 
that  woman  had  trouble  enough.  In  point  of 
fact,  she  passes  over  the  country  like  a  scourge 
of  God.  Along  her  path  not  a  tree  remains 
with  a  piece  of  fruit,  not  a  garden  with  a  tur- 
nip, not  a  coop  with  a  chicken,  not  a  barnyard 
with  a  pig.  She  sweeps  everything  before  her, 
and  the  landscape  behind  has  the  parched,  bar- 
ren aspect  of  the  desert.  It  is  as  though  a 
plague  of  locusts  had  settled  on  the  land.  That 
woman  can  pick  up  a  good  meal  in  sterile  places 
where  any  ordinary  human  being  would  starve., 
A  village  may  have  been  sacked  seven  times  in 
one  week.  Give  her  the  chance  for  an  eighth 
time  over  and  she  will  turn  you  out  a  regular 
Sunday  dinner. 


180  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Sometimes  as  they  march  long  distances 
ahead  of  their  husbands  the  "soldierettes"  of 
one  regiment  will  meet  the  "hard-tacks"  of 
another  troop  which  is  advancing  to  give  battle. 
If  both  bodies  of  women  are  not  specially  hun- 
gry, if  some  previous  pillage  has  satisfied  all 
immediate  needs,  the  passions  of  patriotism 
and  politics  find  occasion  to  express  themselves 
in  noble  animosity.  The  women  and  children 
throw  sticks,  stones  and  epithets  at  each  other 
till  the  males  come  up  and  start  the  real  show. 

More  often,  however,  both  crowds  of  "sol- 
dierettes"  are  short  on  provisions  of  one  kind 
or  another.  Then  they  get  together  on  friendly 
terms.  "People  have  got  to  live.  Why  should 
civilians  have  to  scratch  each  other's  eyes 
out?"  And  the  ones  who  have  food  share  it 
with  those  who  have  only  money.  But  Mexican 
money  is  often  worthless.  They  much  prefer 
to  sell  supplies  for  cartridges.  The  "men"  of 
the  "soldierettes"  are  running  low  on  ammuni- 
tion. The  Government  troops,  on  the  contrary, 
have  just  received  a  fresh  and  lavish  supply. 
The  Federal  "soldierette"  will  walk  back  sev- 
eral miles  looking  for  her  "man." 


THE  MEXICAN  ARMY  181 

"They  won't  take  money, "  she  reports. 
i '  They  say  you  get  nothing  to  eat  unless  you 
can  pay  in  cartridges."  Her  "man"  expresses 
no  particular  interest  in  the  matter.  He  has 
been  in  the  same  fix  himself.  "Well,  here  you 
are,  then!"  And  he  passes  over  a  handful  of 
.44s,  one  of  which  may  kill  him  two  hours  later 
in  the  day.  The  one  thing  certain  is  the  dinner. 
Death,  at  the  worst,  is  only  a  possibility! 

The  Mexican's  indifference  to  death  is  not 
courage  really.  Courage  is  that  positive  com- 
pulsion the  man  in  commodious  circumstances 
feels  when,  voluntarily  and  fearlessly,  he  goes 
out  to  meet  self-sacrifice  and  danger.  The 
Mexican  has,  rather,  a  mere  contempt  for  life. 
It  is  fatalism,  absence  of  fear,  more  exactly. 
Death,  no  matter  in  how  terrible  a  form,  will 
not  prove  much  worse  than  life  as  he  is  living 
it!  That  is  the  feeling. 

Songs  of  the  Army 

Mexico  is  peopled  by  music  lovers  and  its 
inhabitants  turn  to  poetry  and  song  by  instinct. 
The  most  respected  men  in  any  regiment  are 
the  ones  who  can  play  a  guitar  well  and  sing  a 
song  for  the  bedtime  hour.  The  musician's 


182  MEXICO  DT  REVOLUTION 

comrades  look  after  him  and  vie  with  one  an- 
other in  doing  him  favors.  They  keep  him 
away  from  the  firing  line,  and  their  first 
thought  as  a  battle  begins  is  to  see  that  the 
guitar  is  in  a  safe  place.  "  What  would  happen 
if  we  lost  our  music? " 

Another  curiosity !  With  the  exception  of  an 
air  sung  by  Villa's  men  called  "The  Cock- 
roach'' (La  Cucaracha),  all  the  songs  of  the 
revolution  are  named  after  women.  There  are 
"La  Adelita"  and  "La  Valentina,"  for  in- 
stance. The  "Valentina"  is  the  "Marseillaise" 
of  the  present-day  Mexico.  When  you  hear 
that  song  around  a  Mexican  camp,  look  out! 
A  revolution  is  about  to  break  out.  And  yet 
its  lines  are  not  so  bloodthirsty  after  all.  It  is 
the  lament  of  a  wandering  drunkard  address- 
ing himself  to  a  girl  named  Valentina!  The 
last  stanza,  however,  is  alone  sufficient  to  justify 
the  immense  popularity  of  the  song: 

Valentina,  Valentina, 

Eendido  estoy  a  tus  pies. 
Si  me  han  de  matar  maiiana, 

Que  me  maten  de  una  vez. 


THE  MEXICAN  ARMY  183 

"Valentina,  Valentina,  dead-drunk  I  lie  at 
your  feet.  If  they  are  going  to  kill  me  to-mor- 
row, they  might  as  well  kill  me  now." 

The  whole  psychology  of  the  Mexican  people, 
its  fatalistic  resignation,  its  contempt  for 
death,  its  acceptance  of  the  misery  in  which  it 
is  living,  its  inability  to  buck  up  and  rise,  is 
worked  into  those  last  two  lines.  That  is  why 
the  song  is  loved  so  much.  It  expresses  a  na- 
tional philosophy.  "If  I  have  to  die  to-mor- 
row, I  might  as  well  die  now." 

Revolutionaries  by  Necessity 

There  is  no  fear  that  any  Mexican  revolution 
will  prove  a  fizzle  for  lack  of  men.  It  might 
fail  for  lack  of  arms,  for  lack  of  cash,  for  lack 
of  understanding  between  its  leaders.  But  men 
it  will  always  find  in  abundance. 

The  moment  it  is  whispered  around  that  a 
revolution  may  break  out  peons  begin  to  get 
scarce  around  the  plantations.  Any  number  of 
them  prefer  to  risk  hunger  and  thirst  in  the 
desert,  provided  there  is  the  chance  of  getting 
into  a  town  once  in  a  while  with  a  rifle  and  a 
free  hand ! 

Then  there  is  the  great  mass  of  indifferent, 


184  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

resigned  people  who  fear  not  even  death.  Here 
we  find  a  great  majority  of  the  Mexican  popu- 
lation, which  never  start  a  revolution,  but  are 
simply  forced  into  it.  "I  was  living  on  my 
farm  and  bothering  nobody,'7  says  an  old 
fighter.  " First  they  took  my  cow;  then  they 
took  my  horse.  Finally  I  said  to  them:  'Well, 
if  you  are  going  to  take  everything,  give  me  a 
rifle  and  I  will  go  with  you/  And  my  old 
woman  felt  the  same  way  about  it.  After  all, 
what  else  was  there  to  do?"  And  so  the  civil 
war  got  one  more  soldier  and  one  more 
"  soldierette. " 

The  ignorance,  the  mental  apathy,  the  irre- 
sponsibility of  these  men,  is  something  astound- 
ing. They  fight  each  other  and  they  kill  each 
other  without  the  slightest  idea  of  why  they  are 
doing  it.  Meanwhile  the  newspapers  in  the  pay 
of  the  Generals  write  pompously  of  the  "  enthu- 
siastic troops  of  the  revolution"  and  "the 
sacred  principles  for  which  they  are  offering 
their  lives. " 

There  was  a  moment  during  the  second 
period  of  the  great  revolution  when  Villa  was 
fighting  on  one  side,  Carranza  on  another  and 
the  government  emanating  from  the  Pact  of 


THE  MEXICAN  ARMY  185 

Aguas-Calientes  on  still  a  third.  Some  of  the 
troops  got  mixed  up  as  to  whom  they  were 
fighting  for,  and  they  were  not  sure  which 
viva  to  shout  as  they  began  their  battle.  The 
point  was  this:  If  they  cried  "viva  the  wrong 
person'7 — and  the  political  situation  kept 
changing  from  hour  to  hour — they  might  get  a 
volley  from  the  troops  beside  or  behind  them. 

"Say,  who  the  devil  are  we  for?"  one  soldier 
asked  of  the  man  next  to  him  as  they  fired  their 
first  shots. 

"How  should  I  know?"  was  the  answer. 
"Better  ask  the  Captain." 

"And  I  wasn't  sure  myself,"  said  that  officer 
to  me,  as  he  told  me  the  story  in  Mexico  a  few 
weeks  ago. 

Recruiting,  Mexican  Style 

When  a  man  fails  to  join  an  insurrection  out 
of  fondness  for  firearms  or  out  of  fatalistic  in- 
difference, there  are  indirect  ways  of  persuad- 
ing him  to  become  a  soldier. 

I  know  a  Mexican  General  who  enjoys  a  great 
reputation  among  his  admirers  for  his  skill  in 
raising  troops.  "He  takes  to  the  mountains," 
they  told  me,  "with  one  attendant  and  a  few 


186  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

rifles.  He  turns  up  at  the  end  of  the  month 
with  500  men.  Give  him  two  months  and  he 
will  have  5,000,  and  so  on  till  he  gets  his  army." 

One  evening  when  I  was  dining  with  the  Gen- 
eral in  question  he  confided  some  of  his  trade 
secrets  as  an  organizer  to  me.  I  remember  one 
of  his  feats  in  particular.  He  had  come  to  a 
mining  district  to  raise  some  troops.  It  was  a 
busy  place,  with  everybody  working,  and  wages 
were  good.  Nobody  wanted  to  be  a  soldier. 
So,  on  the  pretext  that  the  operators  were 
"enemies  of  the  common  people,"  the  General 
had  the  entrances  to  the  mines  blown  up.  He 
enlisted  300  men  the  following  day  and  a  thou- 
sand before  the  end  of  the  week.  He  told  the 
story,  moreover,  with  a  show  of  real  pride. 

At  times  these  improvised  soldiers  exhibit  a 
heart-winning  ingenuousness.  One  of  them 
during  a  battle  was  crouching  with  one  knee  on 
the  ground  and  firing  away  into  the  air  with 
the  conscientious  regularity  of  an  honest  fac- 
tory hand  kicking  a  f  ootpress.  He  started  with 
a  hundred  cartridges.  Every  now  and  then  he 
would  look  at  his  bandoleers.  ' ' That's  forty ! ' ' 
"Now  that's  fifty-five !"  When  they  were  all 
gone  he  got  up  and  started  for  the  rear.  Meet- 


THE  MEXICAN  ARMY  187 

ing  his  Captain,  he  said:  "Here,  boss,  here's 
your  gun!'7  The  Captain  looked  at  him,  but 
did  not  understand.  "My  job's  done.  I  burned 
the  whole  hundred  of  them.  Give  the  next 
batch  to  somebody  else.  Equality,  you  under- 
stand, boss!  That's  what  revolution  means. " 
And  he  was  off  to  look  up  the  "old  woman." 

Such  a  concept  of  war  is,  of  course,  a  ridicu- 
lous one,  and  it  is  only  fair  to  add  that  the 
Mexican  soldier  kills  and  dies  with  absolute 
indifference.  The  "soldierettes,"  poor  beasts 
of  burden  that  they  are,  or  incubators  for  sol- 
diers and  "soldierettes"  of  future  revolutions, 
also  develop  heroic  courage  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances. They  care  as  best  they  can  for  the 
wounded  falling  on  the  field,  and  when  their 
"man"  is  killed  they  take  up  his  gun  and  carry 
on  the  fusillade.  They  have  been  known  to 
work  strategems  in  battle  worthy  of  the  hero- 
ines of  antiquity. 

Once  in  an  action,  where  the  regiment  of  men 
was  advancing  along  a  road,  I  was  told  that 
the  "soldierettes"  and  all  their  children 
marched  along  a  parallel  road.  As  the  women 
proceeded  they  began  to  brush  the  sun-parched 
trail  with  branches  they  had  cut  from  the  trees. 


188  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

A  great  cloud  of  dust  arose,  and  the  opposing 
General  was  completely  deceived.  "They  have 
cavalry,  .  .  .  probably  artillery!"  And  he  or- 
dered a  retreat. 

"Generalettes"  for  Generals 

The  Generals  of  the  revolution  feel  that  same 
hankering  for  home  life  which  makes  the  pri- 
vate insist  on  his  "hard-tack."  The  "Gen- 
eralette"  is  as  necessary  to  while  away  the  dull 
hours  of  bivouac  as  the  "soldierette,"  and  she 
rides  with  her  husband  on  his  campaigns. 

That  is  the  way  with  Mexicans.  I  hope  that 
in  my  novel,  "The  Eagle  and  the  Snake/'  I 
shall  have  room  to  analyze  more  thoroughly  the 
many  contradictions  in  Mexican  psychology. 
A  Mexican  can  be  at  one  and  the  same  time 
both  sentimental  and  cruel.  He  will  burst  into 
tears  at  a  sad  story,  and  he  will  order  out  a 
firing  squad  for  an  execution ;  he  is  passionately 
devoted  to  home  and  family,  but  he  is  never 
satisfied  unless  he  is  tramping  over  mountains 
and  deserts  in  support  of  an  insurrection. 
Tradition  also  figures  large  in  the  minds  of 
country  people,  especially,  in  Mexico. 

Villa  is  a  perfect  specimen  of  this  latter  type. 


THE  MEXICAN  AEMY  189 

Villa  does  not  smoke.  Villa  does  not  drink. 
His  only  weakness  is  women,  and  the  presence 
of  a  woman  is  enough,  to  upset  him  completely. 
At  the  sight  of  one  his  massive  lower  jaw,  but- 
tressing that  well-known  Villa  face,  has  been 
known  to  drop,  while  a  trace  of  foam  began  to 
appear  at  his  lips.  One  might  suppose  such  a 
man  capable  of  carrying  off  a  lady  by  main 
force.  Worse  things  than  that  figure  in  Villa's 
biography.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Villa  is  a 
man  of  principle. 

" Things  have  to  be  done  proper  like,"  says 
he,  "the  way  God  and  Holy  Mother  Church 
commands." 

And  when  he  finds  a  woman  to  his  liking  he 
marries  her  with  all  the  established  rites  and 
the  greatest  possible  solemnity. 

Once  he  promoted  an  Indian  curate,  a  rela- 
tive of  his,  to  be  Bishop  to  celebrate  in  suitable 
dignity,  miter  and  all,  his  marriage  to  a  Mexi- 
can stenographer.  The  employee  in  charge  of 
the  Government  marriage  register  brought  his 
book  to  the  ceremony,  and  Villa,  who  can  write 
nothing  but  his  name,  affixed  his  signature  to 
the  matrimonial  record.  Then  he  went  off  with 
Ms  bride  to  the  Pullman  car  in  which  he  used  to 


190  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

live  all  the  time,  much,  as  the  old-fashioned  ban- 
dit chiefs  used  to  live  in  their  dog  tents.  The 
next  day,  when  Villa  woke  np  in  the  morning, 
the  first  thing  he  thought  of  was  to  send  for  the 
marriage  license  man  and  his  book.  That  poor 
devil  obeyed  the  summons,  trembling  like  a 
leaf,  and  sure  that  his  time  had  come. 

"You  have  that  book,  eh?  ...  Well,  .  .  . 
show  me  the  page !" 

The  record  in  question  was  pointed  out  to 
him  and  the  text  explained.  At  last  he  was  con- 
vinced, because  he  recognized  his  own  signa- 
ture. And  he  calmly  tore  out  the  leaf,  folded  it 
up  and  put  it  in  his  purse. 

At  last  his  conscience  was  clear! 

He  was  a  man  of  morals,  with  respect  for  es- 
tablished institutions.  He  was  faithful  to  his 
first  wife,  his  real  wife,  and  he  intended  to  re- 
main so.  He  was  not  going  to  leave  any  docu- 
ments around  that  some  day  might  cause  a 
scandal. 


IX.    MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE 

THE  Mexican  capital  is  a  city  of  gloom. 
In  daytime,  under  a  dazzling  sun  and  a 
sky  of  deep  blue,  it  has  movement  and  anima- 
tion. Besides,  pretty  women,  with  great  deep 
eyes  and  golden  complexions,  are  going  about 
the  streets.  But  when  the  night  shuts  down 
Mexico  City  resumes  its  mood  of  somber 
melancholy. 

This  quality  of  sadness  and  loneliness  is  only 
intensified  by  the  brilliant  lighting  of  the 
streets.  Some  ancient  towns  seem  to  shake  off 
their  habitual  gloom  when,  after  sunset,  they 
are  shrouded  in  romantic  semi-darkness.  But 
Mexico  is  one  of  the  best  lighted  cities  in  the 
world.  New  York  may  surpass  it  in  its  Great 
White  Way  with  its  electrical  advertisements, 
but  the  majority  of  New  York  streets  are  pitch 
dark  as  compared  with  those  of  the  Mexican 
capital. 

Electricity  costs  very  little  there.  It  comes 
from  a  waterfall  of  enormous  horse  power  that 

191 


192  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

lights  all  the  cities  of  the  Mexican  plateau  and 
drives  the  machinery  in  the  factories  and 
mines.  That  is  why  the  street  lighting  of  Mex- 
ico City  is  the  best  in  the  world.  Every  twenty- 
five  feet  there  is  an  iron  column  with  five  large 
globes.  The  streets  blaze  like  a  conflagration. 
The  lamps  seem  to  meet  a  few  yards  ahead  of 
you,  shutting  you  in  between  two  narrowing 
walls  of  fire. 

The  Night  Lonesomeness 

And  underneath  all  this  splendor,  as  intense 
as  the  brightness  of  noontime — solitude,  noth- 
ing, emptiness,  made  more  acutely  notice- 
able by  the  occasional  appearance  of  some  pas- 
ser-by. In  this  city  of  brightness  the  after- 
dinner  problem  of  any  one  unable  to  go  to  a 
theater  is  something  maddening.  "What  can 
I  do  ?  Where  can  I  go  ? " 

I  used  to  go  for  a  walk  every  night  along  the 
principal  avenue  of  the  city,  wincing  under  the 
blinding  glare.  Before  long  I  oanae  to  know 
by  sight  all  my  habitual  companions  on  this 
promenade,  much  as  you  come  to  know  by  sight 
the  people  who  eat  regularly  in  your  restaurant 
or  stop  at  your  hotel. 


MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          193 

One  of  them  was  a  dog. 

It  was  the  same  dog  every  night,  and  after 
several  meetings  I  felt  like  wishing  him  good 
evening. 

There  was  also  a  man  escorting  his  wife — 
the  same  man  and  the  same  wife  each  time — > 
and  at  the  end,  though  I  had  never  spoken  to 
them,  I  felt  that  I  had  known  them  all  my  life. 
They  did  not  miss  an  evening.  And  other 
habitues  went  by  along  this  great  avenue,  so 
royally  illuminated,  but  as  deserted  as  a  village 
road — families  returning  from  some  party, 
some  tertulia,  loitering  pairs  of  lovers,  or 
hurrying  taxicabs. 

Every  so  often  a  small  motionless  group  of 
people — the  entrance  to  some  theater  or  movie 
show !  Beyond  them  silence  again  and  solitude ! 
Again  that  electric  lighted  vacuum  in  which 
your  footsteps  echoed  as  in  a  tomb. 

I  found  Mexico  a  very  silent  city. 

Past  Gaiety  of  the  Diaz  Regime 

People  who  have  lived  there  all  their  lives 
assured  me  that  in  former  times  it  was  not  like 
that.  They  said  that  under  Diaz  this  city, 
which  a  famous  traveler  of  the  era  of  Spanish 


194  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

rule  referred  to  as  the  "City  of  Palaces,"  had 
a  night  life  as  elegant  and  amusing  as  any  great 
metropolis  in  the  world. 

I  am  inclined  to  believe  them.  In  those  days 
there  was  peace  and  prosperity,  though  liberty 
may  not  have  been  so  great.  People  could  go 
out  on  the  streets  at  night  without  running  very 
serious  risks.  But  now,  after  ten  years  of  per- 
petual upheaval,  bad  business,  and  personal  in- 
security for  any  one  not  connected  with  the  rev- 
olutionary profession,  how  can  the  capital  avoid 
an  appearance  of  sadness  and  discouragement? 

Besides,  the  old  wealthy  families  which  sup- 
ported the  amusements  of  other  days  have  now 
been  reduced  to  poverty  or  else  they  have  gone 
abroad  into  exile  far  from  Mexico.  The  newly 
rich  are  not  anxious  to  display  their  wealth. 
They  affect  very  modest  ways  of  living,  to 
avoid  any  questions  as  to  how  they  may  have 
made  so  much  money  in  such  a  very  short  time. 

The  worst  of  it  is  that  the  present  situation 
offers  no  outlook  toward  better  things.  People 
had  gotten  used  to  life  under  Carranza,  the  way 
you  get  used  to  a  disease.  He  was  bad  enough, 
but  a  new  revolution  would  make  things  worse ! 
Many  optimists  believed  there  would  be  no 


MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          195 

more  violent  overturns  of  Governments.  But 
the  present  revolution  came  all  the  same.  And 
we  may  be  sure  it  will  not  be  the  last.  It  is  an 
insurrection  led  by  a  number  of  different  men 
for  a  single  Presidency.  In  it  are  the  seeds  of 
several  other  revolutions,  which  will  follow  at 
greater  or  lesser  intervals  of  time. 

I  can  imagine  all  that  the  faithful  inhabitants 
of  Mexico,  who  never  deserted  their  country, 
have  seen  and  suffered  in  these  last  years.  And 
so  I  can  understand  why  it  is  they  stick  to  their 
houses  at  night  and  never  go  out  except  for 
some  very  urgent  reason. 

Germanism  in  Mexico 

I  do  not  attach  so  much  importance  to  those 
early  days  of  the  great  revolution's  triumph, 
when  the  houses  of  the  rich  were  pillaged  and 
libraries  and  works  of  art  were  destroyed. 
Many  revolutions,  in  the  flush  of  first  success, 
have  been  marred  by  episodes  like  these.  The 
poor  native,  neglected  by  everybody,  conserva^ 
tives  and  liberals  alike,  had  never  been  sent  to 
school,  save  to  the  school  of  violence.  He 
thought  he  was  within  his  rights  in  tearing 
books  to  pieces  and  burning  or  selling  them. 


196  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

A  carbine  meant  more  than  a  volume  in  Ms 
eyes.  The  native  looks  around  him  in  Mexico, 
and  his  peasant's  insight  into  things  tells  him 
that  it  is  not  by  reading  books  that  people  get 
to  power  and  rule  over  other  men.  He  sees  that 
the  successful  man  is  the  man  on  a  bronco,  with 
a  lasso  coiled  around  the  horn  of  his  saddle,  a 
rifle  slung  over  his  shoulder  and  a  machete 
dangling  from  his  fist. 

The  discouraging  thing  is  that  the  pardon- 
able initial  violence  of  the  revolution  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  systematic,  calculated  violence  of 
so-called  peace,  one  act  following  another  like 
the  scenes  on  a  theater  program — cold-blooded 
outrages  like  those  German  militarism  planned 
in  Europe  to  overawe  its  foes  with  terror.  The 
peaceful,  harmless  persons  who  remained  in 
Mexico  lived  through  all  that.  It  was  to  escape 
all  that  that  so  many  families  fled  to  New  York, 
Los  Angeles,  Paris,  London  or  Madrid. 

Every  triumphant  General  moved  into  the 
house  that  he  liked  best;  and  the  domestic  in- 
stincts of  the  Mexican  guerrillero,  which  blend 
with  his  harsh  and  cruel  disposition,  were 
turned  loose  without  any  restraint.  "This  au- 
tomobile for  the  'old  woman.'  "  "This  parlor 


MEXICO 'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          197 

set  is  just  what  mi  India  has  been  looking 
for."  That  was  the  case  with  the  German  sol- 
diers in  the  French  cities.  They  plundered,  but 
with  the  preferences  of  their  wives  and  daugh- 
ters in  mind. 

Public  and  Private  Robbery 

When  people  have  been  on  a  visit  to  some 
conqueror's  mansion  in  Mexico  City  they  often 
go  away  nudging  each  other:  "Did  you  notice? 
That  furniture  in  the  dining-room  used  to  be- 
long to*So-and-So. ' '  There  are  women  who  quite 
openly  wear  famous  gems  given  them  by  their 
husbands,  but  which  once  belonged  to  other  wo- 
men. The  more  prudent  ones  proceed  some- 
what differently.  A  popular  actress  in  Mexico, 
whose  mission  it  was  in  recent  years  to  receive 
love  letters  from  the  Generals,  along  with 
jewels  from  the  booty  of  revolution,  has  a  gold- 
smith working  for  her  who  does  nothing  but 
transform  lockets  into  rings  and  rings  into 
breastpins.  In  the  new  form  it  will  be  harder 
for  the  original  owners  of  the  gems  to  identify 
them. 

In  addition,  there  was  robbery  under  private 
management,  with  all  the  mystery  and  intrigue 


198  MEXICO  IN  KEVOLUTION 

familiar  in  the  detective  story  and  the  movie 
drama.  Especially  notorious  and  terrifying 
was  the  "Band  of  the  Gray  Car." 

A  well-to-do  family,  venturing  to  leave  home 
for  an  evening  call,  on  returning  would  find  the 
house  open,  all  the  trunks  and  safes  forced, 
every  drawer  turned  topsy-turvy,  and  the  ser- 
vants bound  and  gagged.  On  a  table  would  be 
a  note :  "Do  not  report  to  the  police.  Silence  is 
golden.  Truly  yours,  The  Band  of  the  Gray 
Car."  That  would  be  the  end  of  the  matter. 
People  would  talk,  of  course,  but  in  secret,  with 
their  friends.  This  Band  dealt  particularly 
with  the  homes  of  wealthy  exiles,  where  such 
operations  could  be  conducted  with  virtual  im- 
punity. Any  passer-by,  seeing  the  formidable 
vehicle  parked  in  front  of  a  house,  would  do  his 
best  to  get  as  far  away  as  possible,  and  as  soon 
as  possible. 

There  was  good  reason  for  fearing  the  ter- 
rible car.  Its  joy  riders,  though  ordinary  ban- 
dits themselves,  proved  to  be  all-powerful.  The 
active  leader  of  the  Band,  according  to  common 
report,  was  a  young  General,  with  a  suspicious 
record  and  notorious  morals,  who  kept  a  num- 
ber of  actresses  supplied  with  jewelry.  Accord- 


MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          199 

ing  to  the  same  gossip,  the  " man-higher-up "  in 
the  whole  business — and  at  this  point  one  seems 
to  enter  fairy  land — was  no  less  than  one  of  the 
candidates  for  the  Presidency,  at  the  time  chief 
of  police. 

Gray  Car  an  Unsolved  Mystery 

I  repeat  that  the  story  is  hard  to  swallow, 
and  I  refuse  to  believe  it.  But  for  many  people 
the  former  police  chief  remains  ' '  the  man  of  the 
Gray  Car."  During  the  recent  election  cam- 
paign, his  political  enemies  put  a  film  on  the 
screens  on  every  circuit  in  the  republic.  It  was 
a  detective  story  dealing  with  the  Gray  Car  out- 
rages. The  purpose  of  the  film  was  divined  by 
everybody.  It  aimed  to  keep  the  memory  of  cer- 
tain doings  fresh  in  the  public  mind. 

The  real  truth  is  that  the  mystery  has  never 
been  solved.  When  this  General  had  given  up 
his  public  office,  Carranza  started  out  to  satisfy 
the  public  demand  for  a  clean-up.  He  succeeded 
in  catching  the  Gray  Car  and  all  its  occupants 
red-handed.  But  the  men  corraled  were  mere 
tools,  nothing  more,  common  burglars  hired  to 
do  a  certain  job.  "They  are  bound  to  squeal," 
people  thought,  in  the  expectation  of  sensa- 
tional revelations.  "They  will  denounce  the 


200  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

men  higher  up  to  save  their  own  skins, "  But 
the  thieves  died,  one  by  one,  in  prison  before  the 
cases  came  to  trial.  Some  were  murdered  out- 
right. Others  "died  suddenly."  But  not  one  of 
them  talked. 

Danger  to  life  was,  for  some  years,  much 
more  serious  for  residents  in  Mexico,  than 
danger  to  property. 

Worse  Looters  Than  Villa 

The  Zapatistas  are  the  most  slandered  of  all 
the  numerous  political  groups  in  that  much  di- 
vided country.  In  reality  Zapata's  followers 
were  the  only  sincere  revolutionaries.  They 
formed  a  sect  rather  than  a  party,  and  Zapata 
was  a  prophet  whom  they  obeyed.  "Land  for 
everybody !"  That  was  his  slogan.  His  men 
were  barbarians,  something  like  the  Huns. 
They  would  fall  upon  Mexico  City  much  as  the 
barbarian  invaders  used  to  sweep  down  upon 
Rome.  But  they  were  honest  men.  No  one  in. 
my  hearing  ever  accused  Zapata  or  any  of  his 
followers  of  getting  rich  off  their  raids.  They 
smashed  everything  they  could  lay  their  hands 
on,  but  they  never  carried  any  of  the  pieces 
away  in  their  pockets. 


MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          201 

Among  these  unselfish  vandals  of  the  revolu- 
tion we  must  reckon  Villa,  too.  People  who 
called  themselves  important  many  a  time  had 
to  go  and  pay  homage  to  this  chieftain,  or  jus- 
tify their  manner  of  living  before  him  in  the 
famous  Pullman  car,  which  was  his  regular 
domicile,  and  which  is,  to  the  history  of  contem- 
porary Mexico,  what  Attila's  tent  was  to  the 
dawn  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

But  what  I  was  going  to  say  is  this.  The 
presence  of  the  Zapatistas  and  the  Villistas,  so 
long  denounced  as  bandits,  even  by  the  very  men 
who  used  them  early  in  the  revolution,  was 
much  less  feared  by  the  honest,  hard-working 
citizens  of  Mexico,  than  the  approach  of  Gov- 
ernment troops. 

"And  now  for  the  Carranzistas, "  they  would 
say,  as  the  bands  of  Zapata  or  Villa  retired, 
and  they  would  begin  to  weaken  at  the  knees. 

And  who  were  the  Carranzistas  ?  They  were 
Don  Pablo  Gonzalez  and  Alvaro  Obregon! 

"Old  Man"  Carranza  was  way  behind,  com- 
ing from  Vera  Cruz,  with  all  his  cabinet  furni- 
ture. 


202  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Don  Pablo's  Murder  Jakes 

Gonzalez  and  Obregon  represented  trium- 
phant *  '  Carranzismo. ' ' 

Genial,  lovable  chaps,  these  two  old  cronies, 
who,  now  that  Carranza  has  been  put  out  of  the 
way,  ask  the  world  to  accept  them  as  two  men 
of  the  future,  two  political  virginities ! 

Don  Pablo,  so  deferential  toward  persons  and 
so  meticulous  about  legality,  would  summon  a 
group  of  officers. 

"Gentlemen,  you  are  a  court-martial.  Put 
So-and-So  on  trial  and  have  him  shot.  He  is  a 
nuisance." 

The  court  would  come  to  order.  The  defend- 
ant would  bring  proof  of  complete  innocence. 
His  counsel  would  thrash  around  and  tear  their 
hair,  and  the  court  itself  would  end  by  asking 
for  the  culprit's  release. 

That  would  not  disconcert  Don  Pablo.  He 
would  draw  his  pen  through  the  verdict  and  say 
to  an  Adjutant :  "Go  and  get  that  So-and-So. ' 9 
Mr.  So-and-So  would  be  at  home,  surrounded 
by  family  and  friends  and  receiving  con- 
gratulations on  his  acquittal.  Then  the  new 
summons  would  come.  "More  red-tape  to  un- 


MEXICO 'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          203 

wind,  I  suppose,"  the  unlucky  man  would  say. 
"Perhaps  I  forgot  to  sign  some  paper." 

A  half  hour  later  he  would  be  in  front  of  the 
firing  squad. 

Ill-humor  was  the  characteristic  of  all  Don 
Pablo's  practical  jokes. 

How  Obregon  Behaved 

Obregon,  for  his  part,  had  a  lighter  touch. 
His  jests  were  more  expansive,  more  theatrical. 
He  is  something  like  the  Kaiser,  in  this  respect, 
and  doubtless  in  recognition  of  spiritual  kinship 
with  the  man,  William  II.,  as  Obregon  claims, 
wanted  to  read  .the  book  the  Mexican  Napoleon 
had  written.  The  parallel  can  be  pushed  fur- 
ther. Obregon  has  an  amputated  arm;  the 
Kaiser  has  a  withered  hand.  They  are  both 
"cracked,"  as  the  phrase  goes,  both  fond  of 
sensational  speeches,  dramatic  attitudes,  and 
ostentatious  military  reviews. 

On  his  entry  into  the  capital,  Villa's  con- 
queror took  advantage  of  a  public  meeting  to 
insult  the  whole  population  at  one  stroke.  "You 
Mexico-Cityites  are  so  many  females.  Why 
don't  you  dress  in  petticoats?  This  woman  here 
is  more  of  a  man  than  the  best  of  you.  Here, 


204  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Citizeness,  accept  my  pistol."  And  lie  pre- 
sented a  revolver  to  a  "citizeness"  on  the  stage, 
who  was  bearing  a  Sam  Brown  and  had  been 
much  in  evidence  among  Carranza's  soldiers. 

The  business  men  in  Mexico  City  won  this 
tribute  from  the  General's  eloquence,  because, 
like  the  business  men  of  Guadalajara,  Puebla, 
and  other  important  centers,  they  had  refused 
to  join  the  revolution. 

The  so-called  hero  of  Celaya  liked  to  slap 
shopkeepers  in  the  face,  or  set  them  to  sweep- 
ing the  streets.  When  his  humor  was  most  ex- 
pansive, he  would  dwell  on  the  Spanish  ances- 
try of  the  merchant  class,  and  address  some 
vulgar  epithet  to  Spain.  Mexican  nationalism 
usually  expresses  itself  in  obscene  insults  to 
other  nations. 

For  the  rest,  he  too  ordered  executions  and 
executions,  but  as  I  said,  always  with  a  touch  of 
good  humor. 

Genial  Stories  of  His  Aide 

One  of  Obregon's  most  delightful  "parlor 
stunts"  or  after-dinner  amenities  is  to  narrate 
the  life  and  miracles  of  General  Benjamin  Hill. 

"  .  .  .  and  then — Hill,  you  know  how  Hill 


MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          205 

is — Hill  puts  his  gun  between  that  grocer's 
eyes,  and  says  '  Charge,  Fido,'  and  the  poor  fish 
kneels  down  to  be  shot.  But  Ben  doesn't  even 
have  to  pull  the  trigger.  The  fellow  has  croaked 
from  sheer  fright  .  .  .  sheer  fright!" 

"•..-.',  and  then  Hill — Hill  was  always  like 
that — he  lines  'em  up  against  the  wall,  and 
bang!  Oh,  Hill  is  a  terror,  when  he  gets  go- 
ing. .  .  ." 

M  •  .  .  and  then,  Hill,  he  bundled  that  bunch 
of  priests  into  a  train  of  cattle  cars  and  sent 
them  off  to  Vera  Cruz,  telling  the  engineer  not 
to  break  the  speed  laws.  That's  a  time  they 
went  to  bed  without  their  suppers!  The  trip 
took  several  days.  But  Hill  always  was  an 
atheist,  you  know." 

"  .  .  .  and  then  Hill,  he  says  to  those 
gachupins  ('gachupin,'  like  'gringo,'  for  the 
American,  is  what  a  Mexican  creole  is  called), 
he  says  to  those  gachupins,  either  you  come 
across  with  the  cash,  or  you  get  the  firing  squad. 
And  the  gachupms  came  across  .  .  .  came 
across!" 

As  Obregon  tells  these  tales  of  General  Hill's 
prowess,  he  underlines  the  fine  points  with  a 
smile  that  he  would  make  a  smile  of  disap- 


206  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

proval.  In  your  astonishment,  as  yon  listen, 
yon  ask  yonrself,  "But  who  can  this  Hill  be? 
Some  superior  of  Obregon,  whose  orders  Obre- 
gon  can  criticize  bnt  not  countermand?" 

Not  at  all!  Hill  is  simply  Obregon 's  Chief  of 
Staff,  his  ranking  Lieutenant,  who  does  nothing 
without  permission. 

It  is  a  case  of  cruelty  masked  by  a  jovial  or, 
as  I  said,  a  good-humored  hypocrisy. 

Real  Types  of  Mexico's  Rulers 

The  silence  of  Mexico  is  not  confined  to  the 
external  aspects  of  the  town.  You  feel  it  in  in- 
dividuals as  well. 

The  more  intelligent,  the  better  educated  a 
man  is,  the  greater  his  intellectual  distinction, 
the  more  taciturn  and  reserved  he  appears. 

People  venture  to  talk  only  behind  closed 
doors  and  with  friends  whom  they  trust  im- 
plicitly. They  have  lived  through  such  terrible 
experiences !  They  have  such  good  reason  to  be 
afraid ! 

Some  of  my  critics  who  find  it  to  their  inter- 
est to  misinterpret  me,  since  they  cannot  dis- 
pute the  accuracy  of  my  story,  assert  that  I  am 


MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          207 

describing  a  vaudeville  Mexico,  with  notMng 
but  burlesque  characters  and  villains. 

They  are  right.  I  am  painting  just  those 
types,  but  I  add,  that  those  types  are  the  men 
who  govern,  or  pretend  to  be  governing,  the 
country.  Behind  them,  keeping  modestly  and 
carefully  out  of  sight — for  to  show  themselves 
would  mean  sacrifice  or  exile — are  the  real  peo- 
ple of  Mexico,  the  people  I  respect  and  would 
like  to  see  in  power. 

The  Good  Men  in  Exile 

Mexico  has  any  number  of  honest,  cultivated, 
distinguished  citizens  who  have  never  been  gen- 
erals but  have  thrown  credit  on  their  names  in 
the  arts  of  peace.  Where  are  they?  Some  of 
them  have  stayed,  out  of  patriotic  devotion,  in 
Mexico — but  attracting  no  attention  to  them- 
selves, and  hoping  that  politics  will  never  dis- 
cover them.  Others  have  fled  the  deadly  en- 
vironment. They  are  in  Cuba,  in  Europe,  in  the 
United  States. 

Against  these  men  I  shall  never  speak.  In 
them  lies  the  hope  of  Mexico,  the  only  hope  of 
salvation  and  restoration  that  remains.  Their 
time  will  come  when  Mexico,  exhausted  from  its 


208  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

frenzied  dance  of  militarist  anarchy,  falls 
breathless  to  the  ground.  What  connection  is 
there  between  such  people — writers,  historians, 
physicians,  lawyers,  celebrated  men  born  in 
Mexico,  who  laid  the  foundations  of  the  nation's 
prosperity — and  the  tortuous  Don  Pablo,  the 
megalomaniac  Obregon,  the  cattle  thief  Villa, 
and  their  gangs  of  pistol-bearing  generals? 
Why  should  criticism  of  the  excesses  of  such 
criminals,  or  ridicule  of  their  absurd  presump- 
tuousness,  imply  that  Mexico  has  no  people  fit  to 
manage  an  honest,  unselfish  and  progressive 
civil  government? 

The  reason  why  I  respect  the  Mexican  exiles 
and  have  confidence  in  them,  despite  the  fact 
that  I  know  few  of  them  personally  and  inti- 
mately, is  precisely  because  they  have  been  liv- 
ing in  other  countries  and  have  acquired  the 
broader  outlook  on  national  and  international 
affairs  that  Mexico  lacks  seriously. 

Hostile  to  Foreigners 

They  say  that  under  Porfirio  Diaz,  Mexico 
had  some  respect  for  other  countries  of  the 
world,  that  Mexico  welcomed  the  foreigner  and 
understood  he  represented  progress.  That  is 


MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          209 

not  the  case  to-day.  I  have  never  seen  a  coun- 
try more  hostile  to  foreign  things  and  ideas, 
more  inclined  to  savagery  in  international  rela- 
tions. 

To  understand  why,  you  have  only  to  know 
its  rulers  personally.  Hardly  one  of  them  ever 
crossed  the  frontiers  of  Mexico.  Carranza  was 
a  man  of  unquestionable  native  talent.  Yet  he 
talked  like  a  simpleton  when  he  discussed  the 
United  States  or  Europe;  and  when  I  disillu- 
sioned him  on  some  of  his  misconceptions,  he 
opened  his  eyes  in  astonishment,  as  though  he 
were  listening  to  a  tale  of  magic  and  magicians. 
Some  of  his  Ministers  could  expatiate  on  the 
defects  of  the  United  States  from  first  hand 
knowledge.  They  had  spent  a  week-end  once  in 
San  Antonio,  Texas. 

Luis  Cabrera  was  the  expert  of  the  crew.  He 
was  the  most  traveled  of  them  all.  He  "knew" 
the  United  States,  Argentina  aird  Chile,  and  he 
had  toured  Europe.  His  "knowledge"  con- 
sisted in  repetitions  of  charges  against  Ameri- 
can or  European  political  figures  which  he  had 
read  in  some  opposition  newspaper,  and  often 
an  unimportant  sheet  at  that.  The  true  great- 
ness of  America,  for  instance,  what  the  Ameri- 


210  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

can  people  has  done  or  is  doing,  was  a  closed 
book  to  him.  In  his  eyes  other  nations  were 
poor  copies  of  Mexico. 

Where  Ignorance  Is  Satisfaction 

The  victors  of  the  moment  are  no  better  off. 
A  few  of  the  young  men  have  been  to  the  thea- 
ter on  Broadway  and  they  can  talk  about  pink 
legs  they  have  seen  in  the  musical  revues.  I 
believe  Don  Pablo  Gonzalez  once  ventured  as 
far  as  Paris,  but  I  am  not  sure.  Obregon,  cer- 
tainly, has  never  been  in  Europe  and  only  once 
in  the  United  States.  That  was  in  connection 
with  his  corner  of  the  garbanzo  or  chick-pea 
market  during  the  revolution  proper.  The  mur- 
dered President,  Don  Venustiano,  gave  him  the 
exclusive  right  to  export  chick-peas  and  Obre- 
gon cleaned  up  a  tidy  sum  of  money  on  the  deal. 

The  revolutionary  underlings  know  still  less 
about  other  countries.  How  can  they  be  ex- 
pected to  esteem  the  foreigner?  In  Mexico  I 
heard  Deputies  and  Senators  say  complacently: 
6 '  We  don 't  need  any  outsiders  here.  They  come 
only  to  fleece  us." 

Argentina,  Brazil,  Chile,  Uruguay,  all  devote 
large  appropriations  to  advertisement  abroad. 


MEXICO 'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          211 

They  are  anxious  to  attract  immigration  and 
capital.  They  understand  that  it  is  the  for- 
eigner and  not  the  native  who  is  exploited.  The 
immigrant  leaves  his  capital,  his  labor,  and 
most  often  his  life,  in  the  adopted  country.  He 
becomes  attached  to  the  land  as  an  element  of 
order  and  productivity,  and  he  raises  children 
to  inherit  what  he  leaves. 

Mexico,  quite  to  the  contrary,  hires  savages 
to  go  to  Congress  and  say:  "Keep  the  foreigner 
out."  And  it  serves  her  right.  The  only  civ- 
ilization in  Mexico  was  put  there  by  the  for- 
eigners whom  Porfirio  Diaz  brought  in.  All 
that  survives  will  survive  through  their  efforts. 
The  trouble  is  that  foreigners  are  becoming 
fewer  and  fewer,  and  there  will  soon  be  none  at 
all  unless  peace  and  security  are  restored. 

Hatred  for  Profit 

There  have  been  revolutions  in  the  past  in 
other  Spanish-American  countries,  and  they 
occur  occasionally  there  still.  But  in  them  it  is 
a  question  of  native  thrashing  native.  They 
leave  the  outsider  alone.  Not  so  in  Mexico.  The 
rural  populace  has  been  taught  by  so-called  rev- 
olutionaries to  hate  everything  foreign,  and  the 


212  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

first  thing  the  natives  do  when  they  mutiny  is 
to  attack  the  merchant  class:  "Death  to  the 
Spaniards!  Down  with  the  gacfaupinsl'*  Their 
antipathy  is  not  all  a  matter  of  historical  tradi- 
tion. Spaniards  constitute  the  majority  among 
business  men.  If  the  natives  cannot  find  a 
Spaniard,  an  American,  a  Frenchman  or  an 
Italian  will  serve  their  purpose  just  as  well. 
The  important  thing  is  that  he  have  a  plate- 
glass  window  in  his  store  and  a  strong-box  with 
money  in  it.  When  they  have  cut  the  mer- 
chant's throat  and  cleaned  out  the  money 
drawer  they  go  back  to  the  mountains  to  defend 
the  sacred  principles  of  revolution. 

I  have  been  in  Mexico  and  heard  with  my  own 
ears  the  admissions  and  complaints  of  my  Span- 
ish countrymen.  "I  have  made  and  been 
robbed  of  three  fortunes.  Now  I'm  going  to  try 
once  more.  Just  when  I'm  getting  on  my  feet 
a  revolution  comes  along  and  takes  in  a  week 
all  I  have  made  in  five  years."  They  stick  to 
the  game  as  the  ruined  gambler  sticks  to  the 
card  table.  Besides,  they  were  brought  up  in 
the  country  and  have  formed  attachments  there. 
They  have  broken  all  outside  connections.  "You 
see,  I'm  not  so  young  as  I  was.  It's  too  late  to 


MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          213 

start  over  again  somewhere  else.    Where  could 
I  go?" 

No  Exception  to  Spain 

When  the  European  nations  present  their 
claims  on  Mexico  the  Spanish  Government, 
which  has  an  affection  for  that  country,  as  it 
has  for  all  the  American  republics  of  Spanish.' 
language,  will  send  in  a  bill  also,  less  in  the  hope 
of  collecting  it  than  with  the  idea  of  emphasiz- 
ing the  extent  of  Spain's  forbearance.  Robbery 
will  be  the  least  important  item.  The  world  will 
then  know  how  many  hundreds  of  Spanish  citi- 
zens have  been  put  to  death  by  the  regenerators 
of  the  Mexican  people,  Obregonistas  as  well  as 
followers  of  Villa. 

"But  they  were  interfering  in  politics.  They 
were  supporting  Porfirio  Diaz. ' ' 

Such  countercharges  will  be  made  by  the  very 
men  who  shot  these  Spaniards.  It  will  be  a 
case  of  a  defendant  acting  as  his  own  judge  and 
his  own  witness. 

The  fact  will  not  prevent  those  executioners 
of  Spaniards  from  finding  some  hack  writer  in 
Spain  to  defend  them  at  so  many  dollars  a; 
volume  and  write  their  panegyric. 


214  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

I  confess  that  my  own  ideas  on  Mexico  have 
changed  somewhat  since  I  went  there  and  saw 
things  at  first  hand. 

Some  people  may  think  it  strange  that  a  man 
known  as  a  revolutionist  in  his  own  country 
should  treat  many  revolutionaries  in  Mexico  so 
harshly. 

"Well,  yes !  If  all  the  revolutions  in  the  world 
were  like  Mexico's  I  would  be  a  reactionary. 

Real  vs.  Fake  Revolutions 

My  revolutionary  disposition  makes  it  im- 
possible for  me  to  compromise  with  a  fake 
revolution. 

I  have  passed  many  years  of  my  life  trying 
vainly  to  overthrow  the  Spanish  monarchy  and 
set  up  a  republic  in  Spain.  I  have  been  in  jail 
I  don't  know  how  many  times  for  plain  speak- 
ing in  my  newspaper  publications  or  for  com- 
plicity in  attempts  at  armed  insurrection. 

I  was  court-martialed  and  sent  to  jail  for  a 
year  and  a  half  (and  I  served  my  sentence)  for 
opposing  the  war  between  Spain  and  the  United 
States  and  upholding  Cuba's  right  to  her 
independence. 

During  my  political  career  I  lived  in  extreme 


MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          215 

poverty.  I  could  not  write.  I  could  not  work 
at  any  profession.  All  my  time  was  taken  up 
with  the  revolutionary  cause.  I  never  held  of- 
fice. My  only  public  position  was  that  of  Dep- 
uty to  Parliament,  to  which  I  was  returned 
seven  times,  in  a  country  where  Congressmen 
receive  not  a  cent  for  their  work  in  the  Cham- 
bers. 

I  fought  a  losing  fight.  But  how  can  I  com- 
promise with  the  false  Mexican  revolution, 
where  every  leader  has  gotten  rich,  or,  if  not, 
has  simply  not  succeeded  in  getting  rich  and  is 
cooking  up  a  new  insurrection  so  that  his  turn 
may  come? 

I  am  not  afraid  of  revolutions  in  principle, 
provided  after  destroying  they  know  how  to  re- 
build. But  I  have  no  use  for  the  Mexican  revo- 
lution, which  breaks  everything  to  pieces,  car- 
ries off  all  the  debris  it  can  gather  into  its  arms, 
and  then  does  nothing  whatever  to  replace  what 
has  been  lost. 

Burlesque  and  Boredom 

The  Eussian  revolution  may  seem  to  many 
people  to  be  the  work  of  lunatics ;  but  the  luna- 
tics are  honest  in  their  madness;  they  are 


216  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

dreamers,  willing  to  live  on  bread  and  water 
for  their  ideals.  There  may  have  been  robbery 
in  Russia,  as  there  is  in  every  revolution,  but 
robbery  by  the  scum  of  society,  the  worthless 
element  that  exists  everywhere.  Lenin  and  his 
intimate  circle  of  friends  have  not  been  laying 
up  money  during  these  last  years. 

Is  there  a  Bolshevik  in  Mexico  who  can  say 
as  much? 

As  an  anti-militarist  and  true  revolutionary 
I  cannot  sympathize  with  Mexican  militarism. 
I  am  consistent  with  myself.  I  fought  German 
militarism,  which  had  a  tradition  glorious  in 
its  own  eyes  and  a  scientific  outlook  as  well,  be- 
cause I  thought  it  a  menace  to  the  world.  I  can- 
not make  peace,  therefore,  with  Mexican  mili- 
tarism, though  that  militarism  is  an  affair  of 
clowns  and  savages,  menaces  no  other  nation  by 
its  power,  and  simply  discredits  Mexico  and 
everybody  who  chances  to  speak  the  language 
used  by  its  absurd  heroes,  who  are  burlesques 
part  of  the  time  and  bores  for  the  rest. 

As  a  Spaniard  I  hate  the  men  who  have 
aroused  the  sleeping  barbarism  of  the  poor  na- 
tive to  hatred  against  the  foreigners.  Those 
men  have  caused  the  murder  of  many  innocent 


MEXICO'S  OMINOUS  SILENCE          217 

Spaniards.  They  are  the  ones  responsible  for 
the  death  of  many  Americans  employed  in  the 
mines  and  oil  districts  in  Mexico. 

As  a  lover  of  Spanish-speaking  America,  of 
the  so-called,  though  badly  so-called,  Latin 
America,  I  feel  deep  hostility,  not  toward  Mex- 
ico as  a  people  and  a  people  that  is  having  mis- 
fortunes enough  and  to  spare,  but  toward  the 
fictitious  Mexico  of  the  false  revolutionaries 
who  have  brought  the  country  to  its  present 
pass — the  only  Mexico,  unfortunately,  which 
outsiders  are  able  to  see  from  a  distance. 

The  Evil  in  the  Show  Window 

Mexico's  proximity  to  the  United  States 
makes  her  the  show  window  of  Latin  America. 
Mexico  is  the  first  thing  people  see  as  they  turn 
their  eyes  southward.  It  is  useless  to  talk  of 
the  marvelous  progress  of  the  South  American 
countries.  All  that  a  hundred  and  ten  million 
Americans  can  see  is  the  Mexico  of  the  present, 
a  show  window  of  horrors,  with  blood-stained 
samples  changed  from  day  to  day. 

And,  thanks  to  the  sad  advertisement  the 
Mexican  revolution,  accomplishing  absolutely 
nothing  that  is  useful  or  good,  has  been  giving 


218  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

us  for  the  last  ten  years,  we  Spaniards  and 
citizens  of  Spanish  America  have  been  more 
and  more  discredited  each  day. 

The  Americans  of  the  United  States  put  us 
all  in  the  same  boat.  We  are  all  sharers  in  one 
disgrace. 

On  this  point,  and  on  the  relations  of  Mexico 
and  the  United  States,  I  shall  have  something 
to  say  in  my  next  article. 


X.    MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

fTHHE  politicians  of  the  Mexican  revolution 
JL  know  nothing  about  the  United  States. 
They  have  never,  as  a  rule,  been  outside  their 
own  country.  They  also  know  nothing  about 
Europe.  But  the  ignorance  they  show  on  all 
matters  touching  the  republics  of  Latin  Amer- 
ica (so  called)  is  beyond  conception. 

Carranza  was  always  dreaming  of  a  scheme 
of  his  to  build  up  a  league  of  Latin-American 
nations ;  its  purpose  was  to  counterbalance  the 
power  of  the  United  States.  He  thought  such  a 
league  would  give  him  strength  and  enable  him 
to  put  on  a  bold  face  in  Washington. 

Don  Venustiano,  on  at  least  two  occasions, 
outlined  his  plan  to  me.  I  should  hardly  call  it  a 
plan,  perhaps,  for  it  never  reached  the  blue- 
print stage.  In  reality,  Carranza  was  not  on 
friendly  terms  with  a  single  man  of  importance 
in  South  America. 

Needless  to  say,  Mexico  was  to  play  the  lead- 
ing role  in  the  future  league,  and  Don  Venusti- 
ano was  to  be  director  general. 

219 


220  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

The  sense  of  personal  importance  is  a  charac- 
teristic of  present-day  politicians  in  Mexico. 
It  is  matched  only  by  their  absolute  ignorance 
of  everything  that  goes  on  beyond  the  Mexican 
frontiers. 

In  a  way  their  logic  could  not  be  sounder. 
Mexico  has  fifteen  million  people.  No  Spanish- 
speaking  nation  in  the  Americas  has  so  many. 
Then,  Mexico  is  the  oldest  of  the  Latin- Ameri- 
can countries,  and — age  before  beauty. 

Explaining  South  America 

I  remember  the  flush  of  anger  that  came  over 
their  faces  one  day  when  I  failed  to  suppress  an 
exclamation  of  surprise  at  one  of  their  ques- 
tions. "  Which  city  is  the  larger  and  prettier, 
Buenos  Aires  or  Mexico?  Can  Argentina  be 
compared  in  any  way  at  all  with  the  Mexican 
Republic?" 

"Excuse  me,  gentlemen,"  I  said,  "have  you 
gone  crazy?  Buenos  Aires  is  the  leading  Amer- 
ican city  after  the  large  centers  in  the  United 
States.  Buenos  Aires  is  the  second  Latin  city 
in  the  world.  It  comes  next  to  Paris.  It  is 
larger  than  Borne.  It  is  larger  than  Madrid. 
The  Argentine  Eepublio  is  the  second  largest 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      221 

grain-producing  nation  in  the  world.  The 
United  States  alone  exceeds  her  figures  for 
cereals;  as  for  meat,  Argentina  leads  every- 
body. " 

"But  Argentina  has  only  seven  million  peo- 
ple/' they  answered  proudly;  "there  are  fif- 
teen million  Mexicans.'7 

"That  would  let  you  out,  if  it  were  a  ques- 
tion of  counting  noses  and  ignoring  quality. 
Those  seven  million  people  in  Argentina  pro- 
duce ten  times  as  much  as  you  and  they  spend 
twice  as  much  money  abroad.  That  is  why  their 
commerce  prospers.  They  export  to  the  whole 
world.  They  are  rich. 

"And  don't  forget  another  thing.  The  popu- 
lation there  is  all  white.  They  are  not  revolt- 
ing all  the  time.  They  invite  foreigners  in  to 
share  their  wealth,  because  they  know  that  the 
greater  the  immigration  the  faster  their  coun- 
try will  progress." 

And  the  Advantages  of  Peace 

I  went  on,  then,  to  talk  about  Chile,  witH  a 
population  still  smaller  than  that  of  Argentina, 
But  Chile  is  utilizing  all  her  resources  above 
and  under  ground.  Splendid  mines,  splendid 


222  MEXICO  IN  EEVOLUTION 

agriculture.  And  she  has  built  up  national  in- 
dustry. " Chile,"  I  continued,  "leaves  an  un- 
forgettable impression  upon  every  foreigner 
who  visits  the  country.  She  welcomes  him  with 
open  arms.  In  the  course  of  a  whole  century, 
Chile  has  had  but  one  real  revolution." 

Then  we  passed  on  to  Uruguay.  '  *  Uruguay, ' ' 
I  said,  "was  once  a  very  troublous  State.  But 
now  things  have  settled  down  there,  and  the  na- 
tion has  been  enjoying  a  prosperous  era  of 
peace.  Uruguay  has  developed  her  natural 
wealth  to  such  a  point  that  her  money  tops 
world  exchange. 

"But  don't  forget  one  thing,"  I  said.  "All 
those  nations  are  nations  of  whites.  As  for 
Brazil,  her  prosperity  in  recent  years  is  phe- 
nomenal." 

' '  Wait  a  minute ! ' '  they  interrupted.  ' '  Brazil 
has  many  negroes.  The  majority  of  the  popu- 
lation is  black." 

"It  doesn't  matter  which  race  is  in  the  ma- 
jority, ' '  I  replied.  ' '  The  only  relevant  question 
is  the  race  and  civilization  of  those  in  control. 
Brazil  has  always  been  governed  by  a  minority 
of  very  intelligent  people,  up-to-date  on  inter- 
national affairs.  Without  interruption  for 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      223 

twenty-five  or  thirty  years,  Brazil  kept  Baron 
Rio  Branco — a  sort  of  Porfirio  Diaz  of  diplo- 
macy— in  charge  of  her  foreign  relations,  with 
the  result  that  Brazilian  diplomacy  has  been  the 
cleverest  in  the  New  World.  She  has  got  all 
she  wants  out  of  the  United  States  and  will  con- 
tinue to  get  what  she  wants." 

"But  there  are  Spanish- American  republics 
in  as  much  confusion  as  Mexico,"  they  objected, 
"and  just  as  fond  of  revolutions." 

"Yes,  my  dear  friends,"  I  said,  "but  the 
noise  a  firecracker  makes  depends  on  the  place 
where  you  set  it  off.  It  doesn't  sound  so  loud 
out  in  tlie  street  as  it  does  in  the  parlor,  for  in- 
stance. You  can  do  things  out  in  the  backwoods 
that  would  get  you  into  jail  if  you  tried  them  on 
Fifth  Avenue  in  New  York.  When  a  revolution 
breaks  out  in  some  country  in  the  interior  of 
South  America,  only  the  people  there  need 
worry.  Revolutionaries  down  that  way,  be- 
sides, are  careful  not  to  murder  any  foreigners. 
Their  capers  get  half  a  dozen  lines  in  the  big 
world  newspapers,  and  the  day  after  everybody 
has  forgotten  them. 


224  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Plain  Words  About  Mexico 

"But  Mexico,  luckily  or  unluckily,  is  the  most 
conspicuous  place  on  the  American  Continent 
It  also  has  the  best  acoustics.  Mexico  is  the 
head  of  our  Spanish-speaking  world.  It  is  high- 
est north,  in  immediate  contact  with  the  United 
States.  You  are  the  show  window  in  front  of 
which  a  hundred  and  ten  million  Americans 
walk  by  every  day.  And  what  do  they  see? 
Nothing  but  horrible  and  disgusting  exhibits! 
If  the  display  itself  were  not  bad  enough,  you 
would  have  other  claims  on  world  attention. 
Your  revolutions  last  for  years  and  years,  and 
you  break  all  records  for  the  number  of  for- 
eigners you  kill. 

"You  never  ask  anybody  when  you  feel  in- 
clined to  start  one  of  your  revolutionary  merry- 
go-rounds.  You  don't  want  to  be  told  by  any- 
body. Very  well!  It's  your  business  and  you 
can  run  it  to  suit  yourselves,  I  suppose.  But 
then  you  have  no  right  to  expect  us  Spaniards 
to  palliate  your  crimes,  or  attempt  to  justify 
them  out  of  family  pride,  because  we  all  happen 
to  speak  the  same  language. 

"Mexico  has  been  a  disgrace  to  everything 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES       225 

Latin  American  and  Spanish  for  ten  years  past. 
Humanity  at  large  is  under  no  obligation  to 
specialize  in  political  geography.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  no  one  knows  the  whole  world  well,  not 
even  the  best  educated  people.  A  few  of  us  try 
to  learn  what  we  can,  a  very  few  of  us.  The  vast 
majority  of  people  are  alike  everywhere,  in  the 
United  States,  England,  France  and  all  other 
places.  And  the  moment  they  hear  a  word  of 
our  language,  they  say,  in  a  superior  manner : 
*  Oh,  yes,  Spaniards !  South  Americans !  Mexico ! 
Villa!' 

"That  settles  the  matter  for  them.  That  is 
all  they  know  or  care  to  know.  A  shrug  of  the 
shoulders  finishes  the  argument.  Why  should 
they  talk  with  or  about  an  inferior  section  of 
humanity? 

"They  are  ignorant  people,  I  know.  I  have 
met  people  in  the  United  States  who  imagine 
that  Mexico  is  in  South  America  and  they  are 
surprised  to  learn  it  is  as  much  a  part  of  North 
America  as  their  own  country.  But  American 
ignorance  is  no  excuse  for  the  conduct  of  revo- 
lutionary Mexico,  nor  does  it  free  us  from  the 
reproach  that  Mexico  brings  upon  us  all. 


226  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

The  Show  Window  of  Latin  America 

"Having  said  that  Mexico  is  a  show  window, 
I  am  going  on  with  the  figure.  Latin  America 
is  the  shop  and  the  United  States  is  the  street. 
Only  those  Americans  who  have  done  business 
inside  know  that  on  the  shelves  there  are  high- 
class,  up-to-date  goods.  A  few  American  buyers 
know  that  there  are  peaceful,  progressive  coun- 
tries in  Latin  America — Argentina,  Chile,  Bra- 
zil and  Uruguay.  They  know  also  that  other 
countries  still  have  revolutions  because  they 
have  not  yet  reached  their  full  growth,  and  be- 
cause, like  Mexico,  they  have  ignorant  masses 
of  natives,  governed,  however,  by  intelligent  and 
distinguished  whites.  There  is  Peru,  for  in- 
stance, or  other  Northern  Eepublics  too  numer- 
ous to  mention. 

"But  the  immense  American  majority  that 
simply  goes  by  on  the  street,  the  immense  ma- 
jority that  makes  up  public  opinion  in  the 
United  States,  has  no  idea  of  what  is  to  be 
found  inside  the  shop.  It  sees  only  what  is  in 
the  show  window.  And  what  is  that?  Decapi- 
tated heads,  to  begin  with,  for  Mexico  still  de- 
capitates people  and  puts  the  severed  heads  on 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      227 

exhibition;  then  machetes  dripping  with  blood; 
then  a  string  of  murdered  foreigners;  then  a 
President,  perhaps,  shot  by  his  bodyguard; 
then  a  friend  clasping  hands  with  a  friend  and 
driving  a  knife  into  his  back;  finally  an  edu- 
cated man  serving  as  councilor  to  a  bandit,  pro- 
moted General ! 

"It's  time  that  show  window  were  washed 
up  a  bit.  Mexico,  the  real  Mexico,  has  a  much 
better  line  of  goods  to  advertise  than  that.  All 
you  have  to  do  is  change  the  management  inside. 
You  need  to  put  some  one  in  charge  who  knows 
more  about  books  and  less  about  machine  pis- 
tols. And  until  the  change  is  made,  we  must  go 
on  attacking  and  protesting,  in  the  good  name 
of  the  America  of  Spanish  language. 

Not  Fifteen  Millions  That  Count 

"You  say  there  are  fifteen  millions  of  you," 
I  continued.  "You  may  be  that  big,  some  day, 
when  you  get  a  school  system  in  Mexico  and 
pay  your  school  teachers.  For  the  present, 
there  are  two  millions  of  you  whites  only,  a 
scant  two  millions,  at  that,  and  you  don't  know 
where  they  all  are.  There  are  five  or  six  mil- 
lion pure  Indians.  I  don't  consider  the  Indian 


228  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

such  a  bad  fellow  after  all.  But  what  have  you 
done  with  him?  You  have  robbed  him  and  mal- 
treated him  worse  in  one  century  of  independ- 
ence than  the  Spanish  administrative  routineers 
did  in  thrice  that  space  of  time.  Your  liberal 
laws  deprived  him  of  his  lands.  Your  revolu- 
tions have  shot  Indians  down  in  great  masses 
by  making  them  fight  for  things  they  knew 
nothing  about.  Not  one  of  your  political  par- 
ties has  made  the  Indian  go  to  school.  The  In- 
dian may  amount  to  something  when  your  na- 
tion gets  prosperous.  Now  he  is  nothing  but 
the  eternal  victim  of  your  political  lies. 

"Then  we  come  to  the  majority  of  the  Mexi- 
can population,  the  detritus,  the  erosion,  aris- 
ing from  the  meeting  and  amalgamation  of  two 
races.  You  have  from  seven  to  eight  million 
mestizos,  half-breeds,  whitewashed  Indians  or 
bronzed  white  men.  There  may  be  a  few  decent 
individuals  among  them,  as  there  are  in  any 
mass  of  people.  But  the  majority  of  them  are 
loafers,  fond  of  noise  and  big  talk,  soap-box 
artists  with  a  gift  for  the  theatrical  pose,  idlers 
and  bums,  who  never  did  a  stroke  of  hard  work 
in  their  lives  and  hate  any  kind  of  success  that 
Is  not  attained  over  night.  They  are  the  raw 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      229 

material  of  your  revolutionaries.  They  take  to 
politics  like  ducks  to  water,  but  to  a  politics  of 
persons  and  not  of  ideas. 

' '  There  are  not  fifteen  millions  of  you.  There 
are  two  millions  at  the  outside.  Make  it  five, 
if  that  suits  you  better.  You  might  be  able  to 
scrape  together  three  millions  of  serviceable 
mestizos,  who  are  good,  at  least,  for  something, 
though  not  for  much.  In  the  future,  when  you 
get  to  be  governed  by  men — men.  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  word — and  not  by  Generals,  when 
Mexico  gets  to  be  a  truly  civilized  nation  cap- 
able of  living  in  peace  with  itself,  then  you  may 
really  become  the  second  nation  of  the  Americas. 
You  will  have  not  only  fifteen  million  people, 
but  many  more;  for  your  potential  wealth  is 
enormous,  and  foreigners  will  flock  here  the 
moment  danger  is  past.  As  it  is,  poor  Mexico 
must  remain  a  third-rate  nation  among  the  other 
Spanish-American  republics,  and  that  thanks 
to  the  counterfeit  revolutionaries. " 

Incapable  of  Broad  Vision 

Whenever  the  Mexican  notables  started  to 
talk  about  the  South  America  they  were  anxious 


230  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

to  attach,  to  their  interests,  they  went  com- 
pletely off  the  track. 

Cabrera,  Don  Venustiano's  Minister  of  Fi- 
nance, was  the  only  one  at  all  acquainted  with 
those  countries.  He  had  been  in  Chile  and  Ar- 
gentina for  some  months  during  the  European 
war,  trying  to  organize  a  "Congress  of  Neutral 
Nations,"  which,  in  reality,  was  to  support 
Germany. 

What  did  he  learn  on  that  visit? 

I  must  advise  my  readers  that  I  lived  six 
years  down  there  myself,  and  I  think  I  know 
those  places  a  little  bit  better  than  Cabrera, 

He  saw  all  the  bad  points  about  Buenos  Aires 
and  Santiago,  but  he  had  no  eyes  at  all  when 
it  came  to  anything  really  great.  There  was  a 
look  of  pity  on  his  face  as  he  talked  about  Ar- 
gentina and  Chile.  What  were  they  compared 
with  the  grandeur  of  revolutionary  Mexico? 
As  I  listened  to  his  chatter,  I  had  to  admire  the 
man's  power  of  imagination,  his  ability  to 
squeeze  reality  into  his  own  narrow  vision  and 
to  find  only  things  that  flattered  his  vanity. 

Don  Venustiano,  crafty  and  redoubtable  as  he 
was  in  political  intrigue,  proved  to  be  the  easi- 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      231 

est  of  easy  marks  when  it  came  to  some  purely 
intellectual  question. 

He  had  to  find  a  name  for  the  league  of  Span- 
ish-American nations  he  had  in  mind. 

Well,  he  might  have  called  it  the  Hispanic- 
American  Federation,  or  the  Ibero-American 
Alliance,  or  the  Latin- American  League.  But 
that  all  seemed  so  insipid  and  hackneyed  to 
him,  so  blase. 

The  "India- American  Federation" 

I  suppose  he  must  have  turned  to  the  Madame 
de  Stael  of  the  revolution,  the  ex-stenographer 
or  telegraph-girl,  who  had  invented  the  "Car- 
ranza  Doctrine."  In  any  event,  somebody  or 
other  produced  this  masterpiece:  "The  Indio- 
American  Federation." 

Dear  old  Don  Venustiano!  He  must  have 
been  thinking  of  the  South  American  statesmen 
as  so  many  showily  dressed  mulattoes  or  half- 
breed  Indians,  with  faces  as  swarthy  as  those  of 
the  Ministers  and  Generals  he  had  gathered 
around  himself. 

When  I  heard  that  "Indio-American"  idea, 
I  could  hardly  help  laughing  in  his  face.  I  could 


232  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

imagine  what  the  Argentine,  Chilean  and  TJra- 
guayan  leaders  would  look  like  when  they  re- 
ceived that  proposition.  The  foremost  men  in 
Argentina  come  from  old  colonial  families. 
They  are  polished  and  refined  in  manners. 
They  went  to  school  for  the  most  part  in  Paris. 
Chileans  have  the  dignified  and  chivalrous 
bearing  of  the  warriors  of  the  Conquest,  to 
which  they  add  a  perfect  English  education. 
In  Uruguay,  the  cultivated  people  show  strong 
European  influences  in  which  the  noblest  Span- 
ish tradition  predominates. 

"Indio- American  nations  I" 

It  would  be  just  as  appropriate  to  enter  the 
White  House  in  Washington  and  ask  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  to  take  off  his  glasses, 
paint  two  red  and  blue  rings  around  his  eyes 
and  replace  his  regulation  tophat  with  a  crown 
of  feathers ! 

Mistakes  of  the  United  States 

I  must  frankly  confess  that  the  policy  of  the 
United  States  toward  Mexico  in  recent  years 
has  been  a  bad  one. 

It  is  not  so  much  that  the  policy  in  itself  has 
been  bad. 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      233 

The  trouble  with  it  has  been  that  it  has  not 
been  a  policy. 

From  Mexico,  the  United  States  has  looked 
like  a  boat  steered  by  a  drunken  helmsman.  It 
was  as  likely  to  head  in  one  direction  as  an- 
other. None  could  tell  where  it  would  finally 
land. 

I  admire  Wilson's  wartime  attitude  toward 
European  affairs.  But,  with  his  bitterest 
enemies,  I  recognize  that  in  matters  relating  to 
Mexico  his  procedure  has  been  incoherent. 

He  was  with  Huerta  and  against  Huerta,  with 
Carranza  and  against  Carranza,  At  one  time 
he  was  even  with  Villa,  the  bandit.  I  remember 
that  years  ago  I  saw  an  important  American 
newspaper  which  carried  a  picture  of  Villa 
and  an  article  entitled  "The  Mexican  Napo- 
leon." 

I  also  recognize  that  all  that  Wilson  did  he 
did  in  the  best  of  faith  and  with  the  object  of 
arriving  at  the  best  possible  solution.  There 
were  moments,  besides,  when  the  Mexican  mess 
was  involved  enough  to  turn  the  steadiest  man 
in  the  world  crazy. 

But  Wilson's  indecisive  and  variable  conduct 
was  fatal.  Any  policy  at  all,  had  it  been  con- 


234  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

sistent  and  continuous,  would  have  been  pref- 
erable. 

That,  however,  is  beside  the  point.  Many 
writers  have  dealt  with  Wilson  and  the  Mexican 
question.  I  need  not  say  over  again  what  others 
have  already  proved  so  clearly. 

How  Carranza  Used  Us 

As  contrasted  with  Wilson,  and  once  he  was 
firmly  seated  in  power,  Carranza  pursued  a 
policy  that  was  coherent,  invariable  and  con- 
tinuous. 

Thanks  to  Don  Venustiano,  a  new  means  of 
governing  became  familiar  in  Mexico.  Very 
efficient  recipes  for  controlling  individuals  and 
groups  had  been  inherited  from  earlier  regimes. 
The  prison  and  the  firing  squad  have  always 
been  considered  persuasive  instruments  for 
bringing  one's  enemies  to  reason.  But  it  some- 
times happens  that  large  portions  of  the  popu- 
lation have  to  be  intimidated.  A  general  exe- 
cution being  impossible,  some  other  device  must 
be  resorted  to.  Carranza  hit  upon  the  "threat 
of  American  intervention/'  "Yankee  treach- 
ery, "  "the  American  menace,1'  "the  peril  from 
the  North." 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      235 

During  the  last  days  of  my  stay  in  Mexico, 
I  could  see  that  things  were  going  badly.  The 
newspapers,  which  always  took  their  queue 
from  Barragan,  who  took  his,  in  turn,  from  Don 
Venustiano,  began  to  speak  of  the  "Yankee 
peril"  and  "United  States  intervention "  as  an 
imminent  possibility.  Obregon's  uprising,  ac- 
cording to  the  editorials,  was  planned  to  fur- 
nish a  pretext  for  aa  American  invasion  of  the 
country,  and  Uncle  Sam  was  waiting  the  word 
across  the  frontier,  much  as  an  actor  stands  be- 
hind a  piece  of  scenery  on  the  stage  ready  to 
come  on  at  the  dramatic  moment.  Such  re- 
ports aimed  to  prevent  sympathizers  with  the 
insurrection  from  joining  in. 

The  "Iron  Heel"  Upon  Cuba 

Some  of  the  dailies  sent  shivers  up  and  down 
their  readers'  backs  with  the  most  terrible 
prophecies. 

"If  another  revolution  succeeds  in  Mexico," 
they  said,  "if  the  order  established  by  the  benef- 
icent Government  of  Carranza  is  overthrown, 
the  Americans  will  invade  our  territories;  the 
iron  heel  will  be  pressed  upon  our  necks;  we 
shall  fall  so  low  in  the  scale  of  nations,  our  lot 


236  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

will  be  so  sad  and  so  disgraceful  that  we  will  be 
virtually  slaves,  comparable  only  with  .  .  . 
Cuba," 

I  was  as  much  surprised  at  this  comparison 
as  I  had  been  over  Minister  Cabrera's  observa- 
tions on  Argentina  and  Chile.  The  hardest  man 
in  the  world  to  convince  is  the  man  who  wants 
to  be  wrong. 

"My  dear  Sir/'  I  said  to  the  editor  some 
days  later,  "go  all  over  Cuba,  if  you  wish,  and 
I  am  sure  you  will  fail  to  find  that  iron  heel. 
The  only  American  footwear  you  will  discover 
on  that  island  will  be  the  zigzagging  boots  of 
some  New  Yorker  who  has  fled  to  Havana  to  es- 
cape prohibition.  Cuban  real  estate  has  quad- 
rupled in  value  in  recent  years.  People  there 
are  too  rich,  if  anything;  they  are  wallowing  in 
money.  Eevolutions  have  gone  out  of  style  in 
Cuba,  When  anybody  tries  to  start  one,  they 
just  send  him  up  to  New  York  for  a  good  time 
on  Broadway." 

The  journalist  looked  at  me  half  in  surprise, 
half  incredulously.  The  wife  of  a  General,  one 
of  the  newer  hatch,  gave  me  that  same  look 
when  I  laughed  at  her  on  one  occasion.  The  lady 
told  me  she  was  anxious  to  spend  a  few  weeks  in 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      237 

Havana,  but  did  not  dare  to  go  because  she  had 
never  learned  English. 

Value  of  the  "American  Danger " 

The  "American  danger"  is,  as  I  was  saying, 
one  of  the  secrets  of  successful  government  in 
Mexico.  The  Generals  are  always  using  that 
argument.  Otherwise  the  people  might  be  in- 
clined toward  a  civilian  rule.  Since  the  danger 
of  intervention  exists  it  is  quite  logical  to  leave 
military  men  in  power;  although  those  Gen- 
erals, quite  aside  from  their  personal  courage, 
know  just  about  as  much  military  science  as 
I  do. 

Carranza,  for  his  part,  was  never  in  such  good 
humor,  never  so  self-assured,  never  so  con- 
vinced of  his  mission  on  earth,  as  when  he  was 
arguing  a  diplomatic  question  with  the  United 
States.  Several  of  the  diplomats  I  met  in 
Washington  were  following  the  Mexican  nego- 
tiations with  this  country  as  a  matter  of  pro- 
fessional interest,  and  one  of  them,  a  man  of 
letters,  found  a  phrase  that  summed  up  the  situ- 
ation exactly:  " Carranza  is  doing  his  best  to 
cultivate  the  incident. " 


238  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

The  "cultivation  of  incidents,"  as  well  as  the 
delight  was  also  the  supreme  talent  of  Don 
Venustiano.  When  he  received  some  demand 
from  the  United  States  he  must  have  smiled  as 
a  boxing  master  smiles  when  he  sees  an  open- 
ing for  a  tap  on  his  pupil's  jaw.  "Why,  here  is 
another  incident  just  as  things  were  getting 
dull.  I  must  cultivate  it  carefully.  If  I  manage 
right  I  can  stick  in  the  world's  head  lines  for 
a  month  or  more. ' ' 

Carranza  in  His  Element 

Diplomatic  proceedings,  like  legal  proceed- 
ings in  court,  have  their  delays  and  postpone- 
ments. I  do  not  know  the  usual  time  allotted 
for  replying  to  a  diplomatic  communication. 
Call  it  ten  days ;  it  was  ten  days  of  keen  amuse- 
ment and  anticipation  for  Don  Venustiano. 
First  he  would  see  Cabrera,  his  Mephistopheles, 
and  then  would  call  a  council  of  licenciados, 
"doctors  of  law,"  professional  squabblers  of 
the  district  courts,  expert  in  nosing  out  the 
trivial  excuse,  the  fantastic  objection,  the  mi- 
croscopic point  of  legality.  Their  masterpiece 
of  deliberate  absurdity  would  be  ready  on  the 
tenth  day,  and  it  would  reach  Washington  at 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      239 

two  minutes  before  midnight.  "  Fifty  years 
ago,  and  again  one  hundred  years  ago,  the 
United  States  Government  took  the  position 
now  maintained  by  the  Mexican  Republic.  .  .  ." 
The  answer  would  be  always  in  such  terms. 

Washington,  irritated  at  the  delay,  would  im- 
mediately reply:  "Omitting  your  review  of 
ancient  precedents,  kindly  give  a  definite  answer 
to  the  demand  now  in  question. " 

Another  smile  of  Don  Venustiano.  .  ..*  . 

Another  council  of  licenciados.  .   .   . 

Another  interval  of  ten  days. 

And  then:  uln  reply  to  note  one  thousand 
three  hundred  and  seventy-seven,  we  beg  to 
point  out  that  on  the  point  it  raises,  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court  ruled  in  1827.  ..." 

Weeks  and  even  months  would  go  by  in  this 
nervous  expectation.  A  matter  that  two  seri- 
ous business  men  could  have  settled  in  five  min- 
utes would  assume  the  proportions  of  a  world 
crisis.  Newspapers  would  issue  extras.  People 
in  the  United  States  would  begin  to  speculate 
on  the  chances  of  war.  Parties  in  Mexico  would 
talk  of  getting  together  to  resist  intervention, 
likely  to  break  on  the  following  day. 

Meanwhile  in  the  Presidential  palace  in  the 


240  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Mexican  capital  a  venerable  old  man  would  be 
winking  slyly  behind  a  pair  of  blue  glasses  and 
stroking  a  white  beard  in  wise  satisfaction. 

Home  Estimate  of  "Old  Whiskers" 

Don  Venustiano  would  always  yield  in  the 
end,  before  public  tension  became  overstrained 
and  the  game  got  too  dangerous.  He  would  do 
simply  what  had  been  asked  in  the  first  place ; 
but  it  would  be  thought  in  Mexico  that  he  had 
done  much  less  and  that,  thanks  to  its  energy 
and  skilful  diplomacy,  the  American  invasion 
had  been  stopped  on  the  threshold  of  the  coun- 
try and  at  little  cost  to  the  dignity  of  the  nation. 

The  "old  man "  knew  what  he  was  about,  and 
he  knew  his  people  well.  I  have  heard  his  most 
relentless  foes  say  of  him:  "Old  Whiskers  is 
a  .  .  .  "  (and  here  the  worst  of  epithets  and 
the  most  atrocious  slander),  "but  you've  got  to 
give  him  credit  for  one  thing — he's  a  patriot, 
and  he  has  kept  the  Yankees  out  many  times. 
No  one  could  handle  the  international  situation 
better." 

And  Carranza's  admirers  would  imagine  in 
all  good  faith  that  in  Washington,  President, 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      241 

Cabinet,  Senate  and  House  were  seeing  with 
terror  in  their  dreams  the  red-white-and-green 
nose,  the  white  beard  and  the  ogrelike  smile  of 
Don  Venustiano. 

That  is  the  way  with  Mexicans.  They  escape 
from  the  cruel  realities  which  surround  them 
by  caressing  the  illusion  that  they  are  first  in 
something.  Thus  can  be  explained  Cabrera's 
complacent  disparagement  of  Chile  and  Argen- 
tina, the  iron  heel  that  is  oppressing  Cuba,  the 
tyrannical  imposition  of  English  upon  Ha- 
vana's schools,  and  the  flight  of  American 
statesmanship  before  the  terrible  Carranza. 

Unfortunately,  however,  Don  Venustiano  has 
trained  a  school  and  created  a  succession  in 
Mexican  diplomacy.  All  who  are  to  follow  him 
have  learned  the  lesson  that  "the  incident  must 
be  cultivated.''  As  new  disputes  arise  with  the 
United  States,  their  solutions  will  be  deferred 
as  long  as  possible  that  somebody  may  be  able 
to  pose  as  the  savior  of  his  country. 

And  if  some  General-President  is  unlucky 
enough  not  to  come  by  an  "incident"  honestly, 
he  will  be  quite  capable  of  making  one  for  him- 
self. 


242  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

The  Present  a  Time  to  Be  Amiable 

I  am  well  aware  that  for  some  months  to  come 
there  will  be  no  "cultivation  of  incidents"  im 
Mexico.  Carranza  himself  did  no  such  garden- 
ing while,  with  his  future  problematical  and  in- 
secure, he  was  staying  in  Vera  Cruz  and  needed 
.American  support.  He  began  the  game  long 
afterward,  when  he  thought  himself  solidly  es- 
tablished in  power.  Obregon  and  his  friends 
will  be  very  deferential,  very  polite,  very  hum- 
ble even,  if  necessary,  toward  the  United  States. 
Their  position  has  not  yet  been  consolidated. 
Their  Government  has  not  yet  been  recognized 
by  other  nations.  A  corpse  is  standing  in  the 
way — the  corpse  of  "old  man"  Carranza.  So 
the  corpse  of  Madero  rose  menacingly  in  the 
path  of  Huerta! 

Besides,  there  is  a  question,  a  question  of  the 
first  importance,  which  dominates  all  other 
Mexican  questions  and  demands  an  answer 
urgently. 

Mexico,  which  might  be  the  richest  country 
in  the  world,  next  to  the  United  States,  is  in  a 
very  precarious  situation.  The  taxes  on  p«- 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      243 

troleum  and  minerals  (both  owned  in  large  part 
by  Americans)  and  the  proceeds  of  internal  im- 
posts are  barely  sufficient  to  meet  the  most 
pressing  State  expenditures. 

The  revolution  destroyed  much  without  re- 
placing anything;  and  the  absence  of  all  that 
was  stolen,  or  dismantled  to  nobody's  profit,  is 
beginning  to  make  itself  felt. 

The  result  is  that,  to  go  on  living,  the  coun- 
try needs  a  loan  of  hundreds  of  millions. 

Carranza  had  the  project  of  a  loan  in  mind 
for  a  long  time  before  his  death,  though  he 
never  had  the  courage  to  propose  it  publicly. 
He  was  conscious  of  his  bad  reputation  in  mat- 
ters of  national  finance.  All  the  banks  in  the 
world  would  say  "no,"  in  comment  on  the  do- 
ings of  his  financial  advisers  with  foreign  banks 
and  foreign  enterprises  in  Mexico.  Besides  he 
was  jealous  of  his  reputation  with  the  lower 
classes,  and  he  preferred  to  leave  the  Presi- 
dency without  having  negotiated  a  foreign  loan. 
That  pleasure  he  was  reserving  for  Bonillas, 
who,  he  supposed,  had  powerful  financial 
friends  in  the  United  States  and  would  be  in  a 
position  to  find  millions. 


244  MEXICO  IN  REVOLUTION 

Plea  for  a  Loan  Coming 

The  new  governors  of  Mexico  will  come  out 
with  their  request  within  a  few  weeks,  or  a  few 
months  at  most.  Formerly  such  petitions  could 
be  addressed  to  a  number  of  possible  sources ; 
English,  French  and  German  financial  firms 
existed  in  abundance  in  Mexico.  But  now  they 
have  all  failed  or  else  are  badly  in  need  of 
money  for  themselves.  The  United  States  is 
the  only  market  open.  When  they  want  ready 
money  they  will  have  to  come  here. 

American  financiers  do  not  require  any  advis- 
ing. They  know  all  they  need  to  know  about  for- 
eign countries  and  their  minds  must  be  already 
made  up  concerning  Mexico.  That  country  has 
not  paid  interest  on  its  old  debts  for  several 
years,  and  its  fake  revolutionaries  are  alone  to 
blame.  They  have  dishonored  themselves  in  the 
eyes  of  all  their  creditors,  completely  destroy- 
ing the  remnants  of  Mexico's  prestige  surviving 
from  a  happy  time  when  the  republic  was 
solvent  and  could  get  money  anywhere. 

If  I  am  not  mistaken,  American  finance  will 
make  this  answer:  "We  will  lend  you  nothing 
at  all.  A  loan  to  you  would  serve  to  foment 


MEXICO  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES      245 

militarism,  aggravate  present  wrongs  and  per- 
petuate a  crying  shame.  We  should  be  glad  to 
help  Mexico  in  her  distress  and  give  her  ample 
credit;  but  only  when  the  republic  has  a  civilian 
government,  a  government  of  people  who  have 
traveled,  who  know  how  to  develop  a  country, 
who  know  how  to  deal  with  people  of  other  na- 
tions, and  are  able  to  think  as  white  people 
think.  To  you  Generals,  not  a  penny!" 

And  in  fact  the  way  to  put  an  end  to  mili- 
tarism of  the  Mexican  kind,  a  militarism  so  de- 
ceitfully revolutionary,  so  immoral  and  so  Ger- 
man, is  not  to  give  a  penny. 


THE  END 


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